KHALY
by Frozen In Flight
Summary: Name has a reason. Might Change. Harry, age 6, almost 7, is abruptly picked up by a pair of strangers. What will having Kharlan Heroes and the Eternal Swordsman for a family do to the Boy Who Lived? Mixed Book-Movie, All in this one. Lazy, I am.
1. Lifted

So!

this is like, the shortest chapter i've posted in ages.

So. I've read 'Petunia dumps Harry at Whammy's House' stories, 'Harry gets picked up by McGonagall before Dursleys ever get their hands on him... One where he was dropped off to the Elrics. One where he had a twin who was Allen Walker...

erm.

yeah. i got an idea. What iff... Harry was adopted by an idiot hero, his magic-swordsman parental, said magic-swordsman's unofficial mate, and a lightning-mage thief.

He certainly wouldn't be completely Harry, but he wouldn't become L, or something else of the like...

i've even got a Beta for this! YAY

I HAVE A BETA

WOOO

Kalima Idina, thank you!

I don't really own anything. One character is mostly mine. Three others belong to Bamco(Namco-Bandai, Tales Studio) and just about everyone else belongs to Rowling.

i'm not making money off this. just giggles. Lots.. and lots of giggles. :3

* * *

Pre books

* * *

Young Harry Potter lay on the last step of the Dursley back porch, curled into a feeble ball. He shivered as night crept around him, and yet he was still left outside. Small, pale, and thin—he certainly didn't look his six years. Something shifted in the darkness, and he closed his eyes tightly, horrified at what it might be.

"What's this?" a soft voice echoed, curious and light, but strangely empty. Feminine, perhaps—an unrecognized voice. The boy didn't dare to open his eyes, even as the soft sounds of movement drew closer. A cold hand nudged against his shoulder, knuckles bony through the thin cloth. He remained motionless.

"Stop that." A male voice, calm, disinterested. "We're trespassing, and these humans are crazy enough to hurt the child if we interfere." Humans…the Dursleys? The child…him? A quiet laugh—belonging to the woman, perhaps. Soft in pitch, cracked in noise.

"They hurt him enough anyway." The soft words were not as cheerful as before. "Say..." the voice continued, absently curious.

"Whenever you begin a sentence in that manner, Origin braces for something catastrophic." Origin? It was spoken like a name... "I'm going to say 'no' now. I'm not even going to wait to listen to whatever you propose."

"Aw..." the voice trailed off as a thin hand petted the boy's head gently."I was going to suggest we bring him home." What?

"That's actually something I could agree with..." The man's response was slow, ponderous. "Ask the other two."

The hand remained gently on his head. It was a little creepy.

* * *

"Lloyd?"

Brown eyes came up from hands, glancing over to the speaker. "Yeah?"

"What would you say to a sudden brother?" A page was turned.

"Uh..." the teen responded, startled. "Baby brother? Do I want to even know why you're asking?"

"No, small boy." Another turned page. "They say it... 'Keep your mind out of the gutter'."

"Sure.... And I wasn't even thinking that until you said it."

* * *

"They agree." The female says after a span of silence. The hand resting upon his head slowly shifted, supporting his head as the other hand lifted him from the cold steps. Harry squeaked, starting to struggle.

"Oh. Twerp's awake." Harry opened his eyes to find himself held in the arms of a thin, black-clad figure. The one who had spoken leaned closer to peer at him with clear, teal eyes—blue and green melded together, with each color visible in some areas. "Green eyes. Bright, so he's not a dimwit." The speaker was male, for all the pale face appeared to be rather feminine in the dark, and also wore dark clothes. "How long were you awake, hmm?" Harry shook, closing his eyes firmly and going very still, despite the shivers trembling through him due to the cold. There was a definite lack of body heat emanating from the one holding him. "Stupid humans..."

"No, Yuan. I think it's cold. You've got better wind coverage than I do," the female spoke as she held the child in her boney arms. "Unless we're really that frightening..." The sad twist to her words caused Harry to open his eyes and glance up. A pale face and bright hair hovered above him.

"We've been here too long," the male spoke, extending his arms. Harry was passed over, into lean arms covered by baggy cloth up to the wrists. "We should get moving." He could see the pale one nod, and then the heavy folds of cloth covered his head. Harry struggled for a moment. "Oi, oi," his ride hissed. "Don't make any noise—this sort of thing is illegal." A half pause. "Don't tell me you wanted to stay with them?" Harry shook his head, still buried underneath the black cloth. "You can speak, quiet like. Just don't pull your head out. It's cold, and moving fast only makes it worse."

"I'd rather not stay, sir," Harry spoke softly. He wasn't certain the other had heard him, for the silence apart from footfalls and...wind?

"Good. You'd be foolish if you had any desire to stay in an abusive situation like that. Go ahead and fall asleep; I won't drop you." Harry didn't particularly want to sleep underneath the folds of this strange man's outer clothes, but a slight tingle made him realize it was a bit warmer here, and he decided it was much better than the cold step of his aunt and uncle's back porch.

* * *

So, yeah. People who are familiar with three of them, not the woman, will know. 'though, she is in two of my other stories.... they'll be introduced much more.. clearly, in the next one.

I have many things planned. many, many things planned.

and they shall be epic and hillarious, and AWESOME :3

at least, that's what i think.

Another one should be up soon. :3

or, i'll just add it onto this one. I feel weird posting such a short chapter D:


	2. Ever Again

So. I'm back again. Meh beta has this bit, but she hasn't sent it back to me, but i wanted to post.

i've never realized how popular HP is -

i mean, a 1k word chapter, and it was up for a week, and it got more veiws in sept than my 94k word, 9 chapter story had.... all sept.

makes me feel sad inside.

in anycase, I don't own Harry Potter. Nor do i own Tales of Symphonia, that's Bamco's Tales studio's stuff.

if i did, Kratos'd have never left on Derris Kharlan, and if he did, Lloyd would have used his entire arsenal of corny speaches, puppy faces, and guilt tripping to try to keep him there.

i kinda-sorta own Aurian. Kinda. I hope i do.

* * *

"He's way too skinny." Harry blinked awake to find himself wrapped in a blanket, a brunette late-teen watching him with a slight frown, but warm, chocolate-y brown eyes. A finger poked him, not hard, in the side, as sort of feeling gesture, as the teen continues. "Really small.. How old do you think he is?"

"Do not prod the child." A man's voice, dull, stern, and faintly annoyed, and the teen pulled his hand back sheepishly. Harry blinked about. He was inside a house, and it was warm. The boy wore a loose black shirt, the kind with no sleeves, and loose black pants, his arms not too skinny, but not really thick like his uncle, just definite muscle. The other one he could see currently was behind the teen, who was sitting on a chair across from the small boy. He was lean, tall, with dark red hair that barely brushed his shoulders, clothed in a navy blue turtleneck, with a blandly stern face that made Harry cringe back. Something flickered across his pale features, half hidden by his messy hair. "You have no cause to be afraid of me." It was a soft comment, the man shifting a tad bit uncomfortably. The teen glances up at the tall adult, and then moves closer to Harry, squatting before the boy.

"Ignore him. He usually looks grumpy. Most of the time, he isn't in a bad mood to match it though." The teen whispers conspiratorially. The man behind the chair frowns, but wanders off. The teen ignores the man's movements, keeping his warm brown eyes on Harry. "So, what's your name?" When Harry remained silent, the teen ran his left hand, something catching the soft light on it, through his unruly brown hair, which spiked up and off to the right, defying gravity in a way that would have made Aunt Petunia shriek and go after it with shears. "... My name's Lloyd." The other hand was close to the small boy now, the teen's right. "Lloyd Aurion." Another pause of silence. ".. If you don't want to shake, it's fine."

"... Harry." Harry whispers, tugging the blanket about him so he could better keep his hands inside the blanket. "Harry Potter." The teen's, Lloyd's, face brightens in a wide smile, and the teen repeated what the woman who had picked him up. Harry blinks as Lloyd pats his head, messing the small boy's already messy hair.

"Here..." It was the stern faced man again, a bowl and spoon in one large palmed, dark gloved hand. Once it was at Harry's eye level he realized it was gently steaming oatmeal, with little chunks of white fruit in it and slightly spiced with brown flecks. When Harry didn't make any move to grab it, the tall man gives an exhalation of air not quite a sigh, setting it into Lloyd's hands and moves away again.

"Dad's what you might call anti-social. He doesn't particularly like talking. He's still pretty nice though..." Lloyd rubs the side of his nose. "well, it takes a bit to recognize it, but he's even got a sense of humor." Lloyd looks at the bowl in his hand. "Here... You're hungry, right? Oatmeal, with apples and cinnamon. Aurian's a pretty good cook when it comes to oatmeal." When Harry didn't move, Lloyd gains a puzzled frown. "Do you need me to feed you?" he asks, a little worried. "If you're hurt, or you feel really bad, let us know..." At Harry's continued silence, the teen looks a bit more worried. "Maybe we should have taken you to the hospital...s'not natural to be that skinny..." he moves to stand, looking around for someone.

"Can't eat here." Harry says, not wanting to be left alone, but also not sure if the boy was fine to be alone with. Lloyd blinks down at him; the teen was sort of tall, not quite as much as the man, whom the teen had called 'dad'... "I might spill..." Lloyd blinks, and then laughs. Harry flinches for a second, before realizing that it wasn't harsh laughter, but cheery.

"That's why you weren't eating?" Lloyd asks, smiling widely. "Because you might spill?" Harry blinks as he finds himself picked up, the teen holding him carefully against his torso with one arm and the bowl of food in the other. "We can move to the table." Harry knew he was light, because of how skinny he was compared to other children and how easily he went flying when Uncle Vernon or Dudley hit him, but the teen made no sign that he was even really there, other than the way his arm was hooked. The medium sized wooden table caught the small boy's attention after that, the carvings of vines in the table legs, and the full sized chairs. The teen was staring at the chairs with a frown, still holding Harry on one hip as he leans over and puts the bowl on the table. "Wait here. I'll find a book or something for you to sit on." Lloyd gently set Harry on his feet, still wrapped in the blanket, then darts off to find whatever he thought the small boy needed to be able to reach the table comfortably at a quick walk, and eventually returning with a few thick books. They looked like dictionaries. "Let's see how many you need, huh? If you're still cold, I can find a shirt or two, the blanket will make things harder." Harry reluctantly let the blanket drop as Lloyd put a book or two on the chair, then picked up Harry before the boy could move more than that and set him on top. "That good?" Lloyd asks, taking up a chair next to Harry, picking up the blanket as he went. Harry had started in on his oatmeal, Lloyd watching the boy inhale food neatly.

"Haha. Looks like Lloyd is a mother now." It was a slightly familiar voice, much louder than it had been that night in the cold. Harry blinked to a stop in his hurried eating, blinking for the source of the voice. There was another man, not quite as tall as the red-haired, in a loose white shirt that he finished doing up with the hand not on the door frame. Harry noted a kitchen, a black clad gangly figure behind the man, but the male drew his attention once more. More precisely, it was the man's hair that drew his attention back. Blue. Bright, vivid _blue_. A flop of it partially hid the left side of his face, the rest falling into a ponytail that swayed, and reached his hips. Harry blinks in surprise as Lloyd groans, rolling his eyes at the man.

"Shut up! I've never had a brother." Lloyd says, almost like he was pouting.

"Blue hair!" Harry blurted. "You've got blue hair!"

"Uhh.." The man looks a little startled, as does Lloyd, and the thin, even taller figure that moves in behind the blue haired male. Then a slightly comic look of worry flickers across pale faces. The man gets a sudden look that Harry couldn't read, before taking the hand that hadn't been doing anything, and bringing it to lift his hair into his eyes. They widened comically, letting the boy see the clear teal fully again. "Hey, it is blue..." The man spun around, his long tail of hair flicking in the motion, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Oi! Kratos! You slip something into my shampoo again?" Harry flinched at the sudden shout, the thin figure in the kitchen half dancing back as a few footsteps announced the arrival of this Kratos.

"what the....?" It was Lloyd's Dad, the stern faced man. he almost seemed to start another word, but his dark, half closed eyes flicked to the small boy, and he shut up with a slight downward twist of his lips, crossing his arms. Harry shivered under the half second of the man's attention. "What are you talking about, Yuan. I do not touch your belongings." Yuan pulled a face at the taller male, and Harry was quick enough in turning to see the red haired man raise an eyebrow in confused amusement, then blink, and look at Harry.

"You sure? Because I could have sworn it was blonde yesterday." Yuan said, coiling some of his long hair about a finger. Kratos's attention slides off Harry, and the small boy is pleased with this fact as the man taps his chin and bottom lip thoughtfully.

"... True. I had intended to get back at you for that one prank..." The taller male drawls, tilting his head to one side. "... Must have forgotten what I did. After all, it is not like you shower daily..." As the blue haired male spluttered, Harry looked wide eyed from one to the other, catching the small twist of Kratos's lips into a smile of sorts, as Lloyd grinned next to him, brown eyes lively as he watches the adults. Harry cracks a small smile, and both men simply let it drop.

"So." Lloyd leans back. "How old are you?" Harry blinks at the sudden question. "If you want mine first, I'm ... erm..." Lloyd blinks, and then counts on his fingers. "... Yeah, I'm still 21*." Harry gives a momentary child's gape at the double digit age.

"I'm six." Harry says. The thin figure in the kitchen is back at the entryway.

"Want more?" It was the soft-voiced woman, and now that he could see her clearly, she was a little weird looking. Taller than either male and wearing baggy black clothes, it was rather obvious she was as deathly white as a clean sheet, and her hair was somewhat more silvery-grey-ish than white. "I made a pot, figured you'd like to eat a lot after how them other folks treated you." Harry blinked, wondering, and then the thin woman pointed a long, black gloved finger at herself. "Oh. I'm Aurian... And watching people is a bad habit of mine." Harry looked at his bowl, noting it was mostly empty, and shyly shoved it toward the side with the kitchen.

"Please?" Harry asks softly. Yuan gets the bowl for Aurian, who refills it with more fresh fruited oatmeal, and sets it down in front of Harry.

"Harry..." Aurian says, watching the wall rather than the boy as he ate. "... We don't intend to bring you back to them. Just to let you know." Harry pauses in his oatmeal eating, feeling the various eyes of the males on him. "If you want to go back, we'll let you, even drop you back off, but if you don't want to, you don't have to worry about ever seeing them again. Ever again means _ever again_." Harry blinks at this, looking from the thin woman's pale face, to the marginally healthier shades of the tall adult males, to the light tan of the teen's.

"What about school?" Harry whispers. "Dudley'll see me at school." Lloyd nearly blinds Harry with his grin, reaching over to pat his head once more.

"Don't worry. We're fairly far from ..." Lloyd struggled a moment to think of what to put there.

"Where those people live." Yuan supplies. "It's the next day, by the way. About..." He pauses to think of the number, glancing at the window. "9. In the morning. We can get you all settled in today, then take you around town." Aurian claps her hands.

"Oh!" Harry stares at her as she has this sudden look of epiphany. "I forgot to ask. Birthday?" Harry blinks at her, the sudden direction the topic had taken.

"Don't worry about it." Lloyd says confidentially. "She does that a lot. But, it is important to know." This, Harry has to think for, and he does so while eating, his little face scrunching up around bites as he thought about it. He doesn't notice the rising tension of Kratos behind and far to the right, or the slow grow of Yuan's scowl.

"... July 31st." Harry says, finally.

"That, we can work with." Yuan says, voice a little dull, but cheery. "But, after you're done eating, we're going to get you washed up, and then find new clothes." Lloyd nods, Kratos has silently vanished, and Aurian is watching him inhale with mild amusement. "Because those things are shameful." Harry absently noted that all the adults wore gloves, ones that showed slender fingers in Yuan's case, and absently wondered if they were cold.

* * *

So, for newcomers to Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd Aurion, Kratos Aurion, Yuan and Aurian are all new. Since Harry doesn't know who they are, I won't put any good details on them, until Harry himself learns them.

Tales fans, Aurian is my OC. Don't hate me for pairing her with Kratos. The dreams tell me what to do D:

Yes, Lloyd introduced himself as Lloyd Aurion. He's Lloyd Aurion-Irving now, but he doesn't like explaining, so he shortened it for now.

* Yes, i gave his age as 21. I have most of the Sylvarant ... part of the game plotted out, and from a start point of August 28th, it took them until January 18th to crash into Tethe'Alla. i haven't plotted that out yet, with the EC and Rheairds and all, but i don't think it's going to take anyless than the remainder of the year to get everything done. So, Lloyd would be almost 18 by the time the Worlds were restored, which means he'd be almost 20 in the Sequel... which i have given much plot alteration to. And Yes, Lloyd has inherited some traits from his father-dear. this is why he still seems to be late teens.

Things will be explained eventually, to Harry and to some other lucky wizardings.

i might post more, without getting beta-checked, because i have almost the entire first year mapped out...

If you want a private, more in depth explaination, PM me.

if you want to ruin a story that way. -


	3. Guests

So. More. Yeah. The first little bits are snippits. I really suck at mundane details of everyday life.

So, we skip it. The first para is the first day and night. the next is a reflection, and then we skip from mid-february to July for Harry's 7th birthday.

Again. I own NOTHING.

not even a car.

Harry belongs to Rowling.

Tales Of belongs to Bamco's Tales Of.

Aurian is an oc of mine.

* * *

"Pick a room, pick a room." Aurian took Harry upstairs, a bag or two on a long limb of clothing to put in it. "These three are taken." Aurian indicated the doors with designs on them. One had curling vines, another storms, a third things in flight and what could be flames, or waves. "And this one's a bathroom."A blank door. "There's another one, which connects to Kratos and my room, and Yuan has one connecting Lloyd and his room..." Aurian let Harry open the doors, peaking in each with its hard wood walls and various styles of flooring. "We'll have to get the bed set up tonight, so you can use Lloyd's if you want."

"What are you volunteering me for?" Lloyd asks, coming up behind them as Harry peeks in the empty rooms.

"Room share." Aurian shrugs. "Tonight only. Unless Harry prefers it that way."

* * *

Harry quickly learned several things about this strange family of sorts. Aurian was a little crazy, but in a good way, her eyes were the gold of metal, and you never played chess, poker, go-fish, old maid, checkers, or any other game that was strategy or guessing based with her. Kratos, while he did look annoyed, angry or just plain empty most of the time, was willing to give Harry rides about his shoulders, or listen to whatever the small boy wanted to tell him, or simply sit with him. Of course, Harry had to tell the man he wanted something before Kratos did it, ever. His eyes were a strong shade of red, almost perpetually half closed, and would change on his mood, as Lloyd told him. If his eyes were black, it would be a good idea to hide under something – or so the teen said. Kratos was fiercely protective of Lloyd, and Aurian, and Harry soon found, due to a case of a trip to a park where another boy had taken a disliking to the small child and the others parent hadn't stepped in, that this protectiveness extended to him as well. Lloyd too was protective, although not as extremely as his father.

They really were related, Harry could see these small things that they did the same; that when Lloyd got angry, his eyes were a bit more of a reddish brown, rather than a warm, chocolate like brown with red highlights; when he came out of the bathroom after a shower, his hair drooped in his face quite like the other male. Yuan was arguably the sanest out of the lot, despite his hair color, which remained blue. He'd tease, poke fun, and annoy Kratos, which Harry thought was rather dangerous, but he was also a stable cook, and he was more covert about his protectiveness.

In all, Harry rather liked his family.

Even if he didn't quite call Aurian 'Mom', or Kratos 'Dad', although neither adult cared that the small boy called them by their first names. Lloyd cheerfully said that he could call him anything he wanted. Lloyd called Kratos 'dad', Aurian was 'Aurian' or 'Aur' and Yuan occasionally became 'Uncle Yuan', at which the blue haired man would sigh in annoyance, but respond. So Harry took that one up. Inside, he called them what part of the family that they were.

* * *

"Happy birthday Harry!" Somehow, Harry would have to get used to being woken up by a brightly smiling late-teen. And even more used to the words that Lloyd had awoken him with.

"...huh?" Harry mutters sleepily, rubbing his eyes as Lloyd passes him his glasses. Lloyd grins brightly.

"Birthday." Lloyd says. "Yours. Today. We've got food. I made most of it." Harry blinks, putting this all together to stare at the elder.

"We're celebrating my birthday?" Harry asks. Lloyd gives him a slightly worried look.

"Yep. No people other than the five of us, but we've got a cake, and presents, and ice-cream, and a good dinner planned. That's why it's nearly noon." Lloyd grins wider as Harry blinks, slipping his glasses on to peer around. "We wanted you to sleep a lot. You can come down in your pajamas, if you want." Harry did as Lloyd said he could, jumping up and making sure his pajamas were completely on, before following the tall boy down the stairs to the rather abstractly decorated downstairs. Aurian was attacking Kratos with a balloon, it looked like, and Yuan was just laughing at their antics. Yuan happened to glance their way before Lloyd got completely down the stairs.

"Oi, love-birds. Birthday boy. Keep it G." Yuan calls to the other two adults, and they stop, smiling wide in Aurian's case, although as ever without teeth, and smiling slightly in Kratos's, a sort of content smugness about his face.

"You can open presents while eating breakfast if you like." Aurian says, crossing her long legs as she sat, playing with the balloon that didn't float like the rest. Harry blinks wide-eyed, there was a small stack of neatly wrapped packages sitting next to the couch, all brightly and clashingly wrapped.

A series, well, a set of three, of loud pops, and Harry found himself abruptly under the table, plate and presents in his hands, and a roar of flame reaching his ears shortly, the orange light flickering on then into a soft glow. Peeking out from under the edge, he saw Kratos, holding his right arm back and a long crystalline _blade_ pointed steadily at the neck of an old man, who was flanked by a middle aged woman, and a gnarled male, his left hand raised to hold palm near the edge of the blade, fingers splayed. The taller male's face was set in that stern blankness, his eyes narrowed and focused. The elder male didn't seem to be too surprised to find an orange-red blade shaped like a flame barely poking his beard, but the gnarled man wasn't pleased.

"Drop the blade, muggle." Harry gapped at the strange eye that swirled larger than an eye should in the man's face, and the small stick that was pointed at Kratos from either of the flanking people.

"Oi." Lloyd sounded different when he wasn't happy, which was rare, his voice now cold, anger rippling under it as there was another set of hissing noises, matched by soft steps of the red clad teen. A matching red blade, and a blade of pale blue were in his gloved hands, and he drew them in an X, then slow slash to settle himself into a ready stance, the flame blade ahead and the pale blue to his right. "Don't talk that way to my dad." The woman, well all three of them were in dresses of some sort, but she had a stern face with a tight bun pulling her hair back, blinked and pointed her small stick at Lloyd.

"..." The crackle was something new, but Harry recognized Yuan's socked feet from across the room as the blue haired male crackles with... lightening? A pale blue green glow, then a heavy metal-settling noise as something fell into his grip. "And just who the hell are you?" Yuan drawls, a whirling noise as what only could be described as a massive double blade spins in his hand, before leveling flat at the three the males surrounded. Finally the old male pulls out a matching stick, to point at Kratos, while the gnarled one points it at Yuan.

"Where is the boy?" The gnarled man said in a rough voice that matches his appearance. Lloyd snorts, a smirk twisting his lips as his eyes remain in a focus heat, drawing the red out.

"How about you answer our question first." Lloyd says, his eyes flicking across the three. "It's only polite, after breaking and entering like that."

"Impudent whelp." The gnarled man snarls, abruptly twisting and pointing that stick at Lloyd. "_Stupefy_." Harry and Lloyd blink as a red light flashes out of the stick, only to halt in mid air, refracting up, before it could hit the blades that Lloyd moved to block. Harry gulps at the sudden tension that slides through the air to the center of the room. Like a dense wind. If the air was water, it was jello moving for those in the center.

"....What I want to know..." Aurian made herself known, stepping out of the kitchen, almost out of shadows, left hand raised and fingers splayed as the feeling of heavy_ air_ grows heavier. ".. is what the hell _you_ think you're doing... attacking _my_ people... in _my_ house..." the gnarled man attempts to turn, Harry could see that much, to point that stick at the thin woman, but his normal eye widens as he doesn't move beyond a twitch, his larger rolling madly, then staying pointed at the thin woman. "Kratos, Lloyd, Yuan.. You may lower your weapons. I have them." Harry wasn't sure he liked the way Aurian sounded right now, a dull, dead voice. Kratos takes a half step back, within Harry's reach, and sits on the edge of the table, Lloyd frowning, but mimicking the older male by leaning against the wall. Yuan snorts, and stays where he is.

"They're mages of a sort, Aurian." Yuan says, frowning at the lot in dresses. "They might figure out how to break the air." Break air? How could you do that?

"So it's not a full body bind." The woman says, and then realizes she can talk, looking startled. "But... silently cast..."

"So you do have tongues." Kratos says, his dark eyes fixed intently on the three. His voice too was dull, cold. "Answer the questions."

"We seek the boy Harry Potter." The old man says, looking quite calm for being 'held by air'.

"Good for you." Lloyd says bluntly. "I seek to end discrimination, but you don't see me popping into people's houses for that."

"Stupid muggle boy. We know he's here, so just give him over." The gnarled man says. He shortly finds the edge of the double bladed sword _thing*_ that Yuan wields next to his face.

"I don't know what that means.." Yuan drawls, holding the heavy bladed thing steady. "But it sounds like an insult. I'm the only one allowed to insult the brat, thank you. And if you haven't anything constructive to say, don't say anything at all." The man opened his mouth to say further, but the heaviness to the air in the room increased. No sound came out.

"I'd rather not smother you to make you pay attention." Aurian says, her voice and face cheery, but her eyes dull, glinting and cold as her left hand twists in the air. "But I will if I have to." Harry blinked at her a few times, and could faintly see a greenish tinge about her long fingers, and a matching color to the air about the newcomers.

"Aurian, the early signs of strangulation are _not_ something a young boy really needs to witness." Kratos says calmly, as if he talked of the weather, his dull crimson eyes dark, but still quite clearly red. "Not to mention messy. Strangling, or smothering in this case, is something better done outside." The meaning of Kratos's words was a bit above Harry for the large words used, but the newcomers shift slightly, the woman showing open shock.

"You'd kill us, just like that?" She asks, startled, her eyes flicking from Kratos, to Aurian, and then Lloyd, Yuan behind her. "Even Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards?"

"Fancy titles mean nothing. I'll assume that this means you're some great kind of.. 'good' or 'light' _wizard_.. But.." Yuan say slowly. "You aren't cooperating, nor are you being particularly..." Yuan shifts his free hand, holding his large weapon with the single as he fishes for a word.

"Pleasant." Lloyd supplies. "You aren't rather pleasant, and calling yourself 'light' doesn't always mean you are." The way Lloyd delivers that last bit makes the woman look sharply at him, but Lloyd doesn't react. "Besides, they're pretty 'Light' aligned themselves." Lloyd indicates the adults with a wry grin, who shoot him an un-amused look.

".. So the boy is here." This Dumbledore, since the harsh one couldn't possibly be so heavily 'good', says, casting his blue eyes about. "Why did you take him?"

"Take?" Aurian barked the word, a twisted laugh. "Sure, we took him. Maybe Harry could tell you what them folks were like."

"So you admit to kidnapping?" the woman says. Harry could barely see the tall woman, but her eyes slide to shorter, elder-looking by face alone, and away as if she couldn't see her.

"I don't like talking to people that refuse to answer questions. The conversation gets nowhere." Lloyd actually was the one to say this, as he turned and sighed. "Aurian, I think you can send them off."

".. I am Albus Dumbledore... My friend whom you've silenced is Mad-Eye Moody, a powerful Auror." Lloyd flicked his expression with confusion before letting it dull away, Aurian's eyes flicking across the newly named, and a twist like a smirk on her face.

"I'm Professor McGonagall. I work at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Muggles. What's that mean." Yuan sensed a form of discrimination there, and he wasn't going to let go.

"Non-magical. People like you three," the flick of eyes didn't include Aurian, "without wands and magical cores. People with magic are known as wizards and witches."

"Hahaha!" Yuan was laughing, a sharp sarcastic sound. "Of course I'm no wizard. I'm a lightening mage, thank you very much." At the confused eyes that strained to look at him, Yuan smirks. "It means I can manipulate lightening, and just about only lightening. A bit of light, a tiny bit of fire, but Lightening is what runs in my blood. And I don't wear a _dress_." Mad Eye kept moving like he wanted to say something, his large eye swiveling to look at the table where Kratos sat and Harry hid. Harry was in a bit of shock, hearing of a world of magic, and that the somewhat eccentric folks that he lived with were part of it.

"Hey.." Lloyd says, glancing upstairs, as if Harry wasn't in the room with them.

"He'd have found out eventually. Hit me with a water balloon or something, kids like to do that sort of thing in summer, don't they? Better that he hears now and doesn't get startled by the fireworks later."

"You were wrong, you see." Kratos's blade swings slowly though the air, working up to spin, igniting as it swings in full circles a few times. "Even Lloyd has a sort of Magic.. And from the way you fervently search, I assume little Harry has the magic you speak of." Lloyd grins, a fierce rather than happy expression, as he twirls his blades like Kratos had, producing arcs of flame and chilled air.

"Now that we've come to the conclusion that neither of us are a lesser breed of humanoid, I suppose I can trust you to behave yourselves?" Aurian says, shifting with a sigh. Harry notes that the word wasn't _human_, rather _humanoid_, and shifts under the table. "Harry, you can come out from under the table." Aurian says with a cheery smile after the newcomers all give some sort of affirmative partial movement, or she somehow thinks it's all good. The newcomers blink in mild surprise as Harry climbs out from under the table, and moves behind not Aurian, Yuan, or Kratos, but Lloyd.

"I've been trying to tell you that he's been under the table.." Mad eye says, shifting what little that Aurian now allowed the trio of them. "And what's on you three?" Mad eye's mad eye swivels over Aurian, Kratos, and Yuan. "You've got something on you that's ... strange. It's on the lad's hand, but their chests..."

"Is it wrong to wear jewelry?" Aurian asks with a smile under flat eyes.

"..."

"We've answered your questions.." McGonagall says, shifting. "How about some names?"

"... Very well." Kratos then proceeds to say several sets of names, none of which were ones Harry knew or recognized, and none those of the four. The three make confused, annoyed expressions at the man's list of names, and Lloyd bursts out laughing. Kratos was smirking, a slight smile that didn't hold the mirth to be an actual smile. "For simplicities sake, Kratos, Aurian, Yuan, and Lloyd. Surnames can wait." Kratos's crimson eyes flicker across the person he named at each name, resting on Harry last with a faintly reassuring look, then back at the three in the center.

"The child is too thin, too small." Moody says, his eye twitching wildly. "You been starving him or something?" Harry twitched behind Lloyd, as Aurian drew air in with a hiss, her golden eyes flashing.

"No such thing." She snaps.

"We've been the one's feeding him, thank you very much." Lloyd says, crossing his arms as Kratos mutters at Aurian. "As much oatmeal as he can eat, so far has been the standard breakfast. Sometimes, I make omelets. Anything he can think of, we've been letting him try."

"Deserts too, if he's hungry enough." Yuan sighs. "We've only had the kid for five months, it takes work undoing 6, now 7 years, of malnutrition." Yuan tilts his head. "Of course, that's assuming he was born theirs. I doubt that."

"Which reminds me." Aurian mutters, heading back into the kitchen, the air staying in its bonds in keeping motions to a minimum, as Moody discovers. "Harry, do you want more oatmeal?" the small boy was pleased to find her voice much more familiar, the cheery relaxed one he was used to.

"Yes please." He hurries back under the table, ignoring the robe clad trio's eyes, as Kratos moves his legs out of the way and Harry grabs his half-eaten, cold breakfast, and heads into the kitchen.

"It's strawberry and cream." Aurian tells him, tilting her head with that soft smile of hers that just seemed awkward. It fell off shortly though, and she nearly sat on her heels to be at his level. "... You don't mind, do you?" She whispers, her half open gold eyes sad as she moves the spoon about in the bowl. "That we neglected to tell you things...?" Harry personally was still a bit lost, but...

"I've got a bed." Harry says, looking at her with clear emerald eyes. "Food when I want it and Lloyd's really nice...." Harry shifted then, looking at the kitchen rather than the thin woman. "And none of you hit me when I do things wrong." Aurian set the bowl on the floor gently, and then hugged the small boy tight. Harry blinks, and makes a weak 'I have no air' squeak. After a second, Aurian loosens her grip with a muttered apology, and Harry hesitantly hugs her back. She still felt strangely fragile, despite the strength she had just used. "So... no. it's .. Ok." Aurian let him go, watching him with a slightly bird-like tilt to her head. "That.. Magic? All new." Harry's eyes widen. "Do you think they can fly?!" Aurian choked for a half second, looking startled, then she started laughing, a softer one, like the one he'd heard when they'd picked him up that cold night.

"Maybe. Maybe they've got brooms and pointy hats shoved up thei... I mean, hidden in their dresses.." Aurian whispers, correcting herself on something potentially inappropriate, then passes him his bowl. "I'm going to go back. If you want to stay here, feel free." Harry decides to stay in the kitchen, but near the door.

"It's for his own protection, to stay with his relatives." Dumbledore says, watching the adults over his half-moon glasses. "The protections against the dark lord are strongest with blood relations."

"We have plenty of protections. Against specifically your magic, I'd have to research." Aurian's voice was cold again. "That popping trick of yours, I'd have to look it up, but we have our own version. And if its blood that's needed, that's easy enough to do. Combating darkness is fairly easy for us."

"It is not." McGonagall snaps. "There's magic in blood, and relatives have a stronger tie together, producing more power for the protections."

"Then we mix our bloods." Kratos says, shrugging. "Lloyd and I are son and father. Yuan and I have given each other crude blood transfusions before."

"As well as being half-brothers." Yuan offers, lifting his hand and making his weapon vanish into a ball of light which was absorbed into his palm, then twirling the end of his ponytail of hair between his fingers.

"And Aurian is my.." Here Kratos made a strange face, like the man was confused, irritated, and thinking at the same time. "... Fiancée. For the past.. Decade." It was close enough. "We've also done some of those crude blood transfusions." McGonagall looks like she's worrying for their sanity, the amount of blood swapped between the adult three.

"I'm sure I can look up some sort of spell of my people to work it out, if we want to make this a full adoption." Aurian says, smiling her soft smile. "We could reinforce it with the blood, perhaps."

"It would really be for the best if you simply returned Harry to his relatives."

"Not going to happen." All four say at the same time, shifting their stances.

"I grew up on the streets." Yuan says, his teal eyes narrowed and stormy. "And I wasn't even that thin. We're not returning a child to those who don't care for him. _That_ is worse than dumping the child on the streets."

"It's still breaking the law, kidnapping. Both muggle and Wizarding laws are against it." McGonagall says, frowning.

"Is removing a child from an abusive, neglectful environment considered kidnapping?" Aurian asks, looking and sounding faintly shocked as her dull eyes flick over the Wizards. "I thought it was something different. Liberating? Freeing?"

"What proof do you have that they were not simply poor, and unable to feed the boy well?" Mad-eye asks, frowning up at the tall woman.

"Their boy was borderline obese." Kratos mutters, looking mildly disgusted. "And Harry was more of a twig than Aurian."

"Which is saying something." Lloyd mutters, looking irritated. "Aurian's damn skinny, skin and bones." Aurian crosses her bony arms, frowning slightly away as Lloyd clarifies things for the Wizards, who had been slightly confused by the tall woman's loose clothing. "We've been feeding him as much as he can stand since Aurian and Yuan came home with him."

"And before you call us on the abuse.. Or the neglect.." Kratos says, shifting. "What kind of caring family locks a child in hand-me-downs, outside when it still frosts over night, without so much as a blanket?" McGonagall flinches, and sends a disapproving look to the back of Dumbledore's head.

"I take it that you would not hesitate to take Harry again, should we take him back to his relatives." Dumbledore says, watching the adults. He didn't like the sudden grin on Kratos's face, it made the man seem... insane.

"You could try." Yuan drawls. "We can't guarantee that we'd let you off the property in one piece." Dumbledore frowned at the males, the tall woman, while Harry tried to digest this as well as his delayed breakfast. The elderly wizard stands still for a long time in silence, before he slowly nods.

"Very well. We will leave Harry in your care." Lloyd does a tiny victory arm-pump.

"If you wish, you may make checks on him." Yuan offers, shifting.

"So we're going to leave the savior of the Wizarding world with a handful of crazy humans." Mad-Eye growls, his eye rolling madly. Yuan stiffens.

"Excuse me. I'm not a human, thank you." It was a reflexive response, one that the blue haired man seemed to notice he made after he had said it, and Kratos had face palmed.

"What?" McGonagall asks, blinking at the tall male. Yuan was growling to himself in a harsh language, hitting the heel of his hand against his forehead as the other hand tangles in the part of his hair not in the loose ponytail that covered his ears in their entirety.

"Harry, you might as well come out and see." Yuan sighs, undoing the thick wrap that held his hair back. "So I don't have to explain myself twice." Harry blinks, and moves out of the kitchen to sit next to Aurian, holding his bowl of oatmeal yet. Yuan's hair fell in a loose blue curtain about his lean body when he undid the wrap, reaching rather evenly to his hips. "I'm half human." Yuan sighs out, sounding irritated with himself, as he redid his hair. It was a tighter ponytail, still at the base of his head, still with a flop of hair over half his face, but now his ears were clear. The majority of the shape was the same, but there was an added point to them, an extra inch or so of cartilage that pointed sharply. Yuan finished tying his hair back with an annoyed sigh, flipping it over his shoulder. "I'm a half-elf." His teal eyes dared any of the three wizards to say something.

"... Half-elf?" Moody snorts. "The only elves are the House Elves." Aurian now bristles, her eyes narrowing at something that Harry didn't catch. "Little indentured servant creatures with a form of magic, and no backbone or desire to be free. It's one of the worst punishments to them, being set free. You'd be the brats height, if you were half Elf, and not nearly so _pretty_."

"I take insult to that." Aurian mutters. "A slave-race, hm?" She scowls at the wizards. Lloyd looks a tad worried, as Kratos face palms, harder. "And small? Pah. Open your eyes more, _humans_."

"Aurian, calm down... we do not need any inadvertent magical explosions.." Kratos attempts to soothe her, getting off the table as the still air in the room stirs, swirling about her. Her hair shifts, and in the lighting of the room, after he moved toward Kratos, Harry could clearly see that the woman's hair had a faint purple tinge to the silver, long white _something_ parting her uneven messy hair angling back. When he noticed the dark chains dangling from the one on his side, he realizes that they are ears, just long enough to reach past her skull and messy hair with delicate points, a little more than half a foot of ear. Aurian shifted her hair, irritated, letting a small red crystal show on a long chain from the earlobe, which was connected to a nine-pointed sun-stud, crafted of a golden-brown metal and carved with runes.

"Elves come in more shapes and colors than you might think, _human_." Aurian hisses at them, her eyes half closed and tone sharp. Her ears flick, and sticking out from her head perpendicular, before flattening her hair back, reminding Harry of an angry cat. Especially with the way her lip was curling into a snarl. But he wouldn't dare tell the angry woman that. "At least when we make things, we make them fit properly. Or is it your ego that's bloating your eye, _human_?" Kratos, surprisingly enough, wasn't watching the elf's face, but her shadow on the floor. Moody splutters, his normal eye narrowing in anger as his larger, magical, swivels and twitches about madly. McGonagall was studying the tall woman from her spot in the living room, while Dumbledore watches the adults speculatively as the temperature seems to rise. Moody opens his mouth to retort, but Dumbledore smoothly cuts him off.

"So, Kratos, are you or your son like Yuan?" Dumbledore's voice was calm, and warmly blank of anything other than mild curiosity. He didn't so much as twitch as the molten gold eyes of the infuriated elf flick to him, nor the crimson of the man he addressed. The tallest male inclines his head a fraction, before shaking his head visibly.

"No. I was born human, with only traces of Elven in my blood. Lloyd's mother was fully human, so he is even less Elven than I." Kratos says just as calmly, although his voice is dull. He glances at Aurian, who still seemed angry, and paused, a flicker of what could be read as regret crossing his face. "I think it would be best if you vacated the property. The block should be gone. You may... pop, away. If you return at a later date, I believe it would be best for you to neglect to bring your angry friend along." The two wizards and the witch make a slight frown, a grimace on Moody's face, but they pop and vanish. Kratos tilts his head, and slides his eyes to Aurian. "...So?"

"They're gone." Aurian falls into a sit, crossing her legs after she thumped to the ground.

"And...?" Yuan seemed to know she was leaving something out.

"I tagged them." Aurian says with a small, smug smile. "None of them reacted when I did, so I don't think they noticed. Where they go, I'll know.."

"Did you give them Friend? Or Foe?" Lloyd asks, swinging his blades, then pressing them together. Harry blinks as they abruptly become a large purple blade, before Lloyd pulls something out of the hilt, and holds only a ring.

"No." Aurian says, closing her eyes. "I left them blank. But... blue. Because they aren't normal folk." Kratos nods, Lloyd slipping the ring onto his locket-chain, before Yuan blinks.

"You can change the color of the FoF tags?"

"Uh.. Yes? Am I not supposed to...?" Aurian blinks and looks a little worried. Yuan shakes his head.

"No, no, I just didn't think it was possible..." Yuan stares intently at Kratos for a few seconds, before grinning widely. "Haha! Just about any color! Hahahaha!" Yuan holds his sides as Kratos frowns, the blue haired man's laughter much more of actual humor now, and looks up.

"... You made it pink." Kratos sighs, getting off the edge of the table. He claps his large hands together, looking down at Harry. "Now. I think we have a celebration to continue. If you have any questions, write them down and wait. Now is not the time for thinking on such things."

* * *

Okies, a little bit of clarification

Yuan's Swallow. Yeah. that thing. it is a _thing_. Seriously. http:// aselia . wikia . com/wiki /File:Yuan _ Concept . png

It's a _thing_. I'd almost call it a pole-arm, but it looks too much like a blade.

So, non-Tales-people. I shall explain a little.

Magic in Symphonia is accessable to only those with elven blood. Elves, Half-Elves. So, Yuan and Aurian have magic. Half elves generally are anywhere from human-side-prominent (living a little more than a hundred years, looking more human than elf, having small pointed ears (think Lord of the Ring movie Elves)) to being Elf-blood-prominent ( having longer (2-4 inch) extra-ear, living to a little under a thousand years). A full blooded elf, on the other hand, has one or two choices, depending on which group they are. Aurian's kind are a little longer lived, and are more down-to-earth, more... 'natural' or 'rough' elves. Their ears are 6-8 inches long, and have a thin bone in them, as well as muscles to twitch the ear every which way(i made them up. They aren't canon. And they're all dead.). The other kind(are the canon kind), have ears that stick perpendicular to their heads, and just reach out to their shoulders. i'd say it's about 5-7 inches long, and they don't move.

This, in mine at least, has very little to do with how good their magic is. they either have it, have a little, or have a lot. Yuan has, like he said, a specialized magic. He's got a lot, but in _one_ element. (of which there are 10. Light, Dark, Lightning/Lightening, Water, Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Holy, Healing) he's an amazing Lightning mage, but can't do jack-shit in anything else. Aurian, on the other hand, is full blooded Elf. She can use all the magic types, to varying degrees. she's not that great at Ice, but when she casts Fire or Wind, watch out, cause she can do a lot. Even if she didn't say it, i'll tell you now - Aurian is a Fire-Wind mage, mostly. But she can cast anything.

Kratos and Lloyd are special cases. I won't tell you. It will.. Eventually come up in here.

**If you want to know more about how i do Tales Magic, PM me or sommat. Otherwise i'll add another several K of words. Otherwise, Wait.**

Yeah, it's really messy.

I left chunks out.

i do that.

If i come up with something, it may be added into this one, or it may be a add-on to before another chapter. 'flashbacks' if you will.


	4. Wizards

Just some random things. One's a time-less snippit. just feel free to put it in your mental timeline at anypoint where Harry's opened up enough to the family (not that with Lloyd there it'd take forever) The second, in late August.

* * *

".f... Kratos..?" Kratos blinks over the muggle fantasy novel that he was reading at an alarming rate, and looks at Harry.

"hm?" Kratos closed the book about a finger to show that Harry had his full attention.

"wanna... Wannaplaytag?" Despite the fact he knew that Kratos wasn't a mean person, it still was a little intimidating to speak with the man. Fortunately, Kratos seemed adept at understanding smooshed words. He looked a little startled.

"Tag?" Lloyd seemed to have heard Harry's rushed words. "I love tag!"

"I..." Kratos looked a little ashamed of himself. "Have.. never played that game..." Lloyd and Harry stare at the red haired male as he avoids looking directly at him.

"Seriously?" Lloyd yells, looking as shocked as Harry felt, before he grins widely, and wraps both of his arms about one of his fathers. "Yuan! We need your help!" The blue haired man moved into sight after a span of a handful of seconds, his arms crossed and an amused eyebrow raised at the sight of Kratos tugged to his feet by his arm by his son.

"Oh? What with?"

"Dad doesn't know how to play tag!" Lloyd says, like it was the worst thing in the world. Yuan blinks, looking as startled Kratos had.

"Well. I know the theory of the game.." Yuan drops his arms, looking thoughtful. "But I've never actually played." Lloyd and Harry gape at both adults, before Lloyd nudges Harry into Yuan, the small boy grabbing onto Yuan's hand.

"Let's play tag!" Lloyd moves to link arms with Yuan as well, and tugs the two adults, Harry helping, into the backyard. "Very simple. We run from one person. That person tries to tag the others. If you get tagged, you're now that tagger." Kratos and Yuan give Lloyd very bland looks. "Ends within a time limit. Aaaand. We're playing with Harry." Lloyd clapped his hands on Harry's shoulder, and the two men looked at each other, and split. "By the way." Lloyd says conversationally, leaning down to Harry's level. "You've just been tagged." Harry whirled around, but Lloyd was already dashing away.

This, was perhaps by far the most fun Harry had had in his life.

* * *

"Someone's here." Harry looked up from homework as Aurian called this out to the house. "The old man, and someones I haven't tagged yet."

"Some people, Aurian." Kratos says, turning a page in the paper as he stands. "Talk correctly, please."

"Made sense to me when I said it." Aurian says from the kitchen. "Should I start some water for.. Tea, or something?"

"Probably." Lloyd says, as Kratos moves, newspaper in hand and still reading, to the door, coming. He wore one of his black tank tops again, and his dark pants. Harry glimpsed the faint lighter lines, crossing, ridged, on his arms, and frowned at them. Lloyd noticed, and looked himself. "Shoot. I'll be back." Lloyd takes the stairs three at a time and a door swings close upstairs as the front door downstairs opens.

"Ah, Mr. Kratos." Dumbledore blinks up with a faint smile at Kratos, who turns the page and nods at him, stepping aside so the way in was clear, his half-closed eyes flicking over the small mob of brighter red haired folk behind the elderly male. "I've noticed that there are no Wizarding records of you or your family, and brought along one I trust to meet little Harry and your folk." Dumbledore explains to the lean man.

"I see." Kratos tilts his head into the house. "Aurian put some water to boil. Please come in and take your shoes off. Harry is finishing some work to see what grade he would be in by mundane standards." Kratos stood partially behind the door and let Aurian look at the newcomers, counting subtly. Short, rounded adult female, taller thin adult male, late teen boy, middle teen boy, early teen boy, twin boys, not yet teen. Boy Harry's age, and a girl younger yet, all with the same coppery red hair, his own darker and less orange. Nine of them. And the old man, which would mean that they'd need almost all of their cups...

"Nice to meet you." The thin elf was in the doorway to the kitchen, her long ears hidden in her hair once more. The family blinks at her, and her awkward height, washed out coloring before the woman smiles.

"Nice to meet you, dear. I'm Molly Weasley." The short woman didn't seem to feel awkward at the fact she only reached the middle of the tall woman's torso, offering her padded hand for the gangly to shake. Aurian blinked at Molly once, before gently curling her fingers about the shorter woman's hand, and letting the woman shake it.

"Aurian... Enasni. Tenshi clan." Harry had never heard of those before Aurian had used them to introduce herself to the, presumably, witch.

"That's Japanese, isn't it?" One of the boys pipes up, the elder one looking at the pale elf in black from the small mob of them. Aurian blinked, looking mildly startled, her golden eyes flicking to Kratos and the stairs.

"Yes... it is." Aurian says with her faint, slightly awkward smile. "Although we are not Japanese, we took the name. It's more.. Abstract, sounds less arrogant than other things we could call ourselves."

"So what's it mean?" the boy asks, blinking. Aurian turns her smile to him, and Harry was pleased to see that her eyes were still molten gold.

"What's your name?" Aurian abruptly changed the topic. The tall man blinks as Kratos steps casually between him and the door to the forge, Kratos's attention on the kitchen and the brood of redheads.

"Ah. I'm Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office in the Ministry of Magic." Kratos is the closest to the marginally shorter male, so he gets the enthusiastic handshake, the brighter red haired male showing faint confusion over the gloves the navy clad male wore.

"I'm afraid that means nothing to me." Kratos says, sounding apologetic as he reclaims his large palmed hand and crossed his arms behind him.

"It's the local magical government." Dumbledore explains, his eyes moving across the lot of them.

"This is William-"

"-Bill, ma!-"

"-he's our oldest at 16, and he's a 6th year at Hogwarts. Charlie is 14, a 3rd year. Percy will be going to Hogwarts this September for the first time. The twins are Fred and George-"

"-Ma, I'm George!" the first twin says, the one Molly had indicated to and said Fred.

"And I'm Fred!" The other protests.

"-Sorry dears. They're 9. Ron here is 7, and Ginny is 6." Molly finished the introductions of her brood to a mildly confused Aurian, but the thin elf pointed and repeated all the names correctly before the stairs thundered and Lloyd darted down. Harry was rather pleased to see his adopted brother, and moved to stand behind the tall teen.

"And this is Lloyd." Aurian says with her mild smile, indicating the late teen. "He's..."

"22." Lloyd says, slowly, sticking his hands in his pockets. "My birthday was last week, remember? Dad cooked everything; Yuan dumped a basket of tomatoes on me to wake me up...?"

"Which caused you to scream bloody murder.." Kratos adds on to the end of Lloyd's sentence.

"And woke up Harry..." Aurian continues, like she's remembering.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault that Uncle Yuan decided to wake me up at 3 in the morning." Lloyd says, frowning slightly, then realizes that the Weasley family and Dumbledore are looking at them strangely. He blinks, and makes an awkward face. "Hi." Lloyd abruptly found two matching boys attaching themselves to his legs.

"What House were you sorted into?" Fred, Aurian tagged him with a strange purple color that Lloyd assumed could be called fuchsia, asked, looking up at the tall male.

"You did go to Hogwarts, right?" George's tag was an emerald green, like Harry's, but of a different shape. Lloyd blinks at them, trying to place where he'd heard the word before.

"... No, I haven't..." Lloyd says, looking across the gathered redheads. "None of us have." The boys give shocked looks, as Ginny moves closer to her mother. "... Did I say something wrong?" Lloyd asks, looking a little worried.

"Are you a Muggle?" Arthur was abruptly next to the not-so-teen, looking at the brunette with curiosity.

"Muggle... Oh, person without magic? No, I've got a sort, but not the stick waving kind." Lloyd seems intent to leave it at that. "I've lived most my life without knowing of your sort of magic, so.. I guess you could call me a muggle..." His eyes narrow slightly, reminding Harry of Kratos. "Unless of course you mean it as some sort discrimination. Then I'd suggest you don't." Harry had yet to get Lloyd to tell him just why that large word was something the young adult didn't like, but it was rather obvious that he didn't like the subject. Kratos coughs.

"... Right. I'm Lloyd Aurion-Irving." Lloyd offers his right hand, his left staying in his pocket. Arthur shook it, his eyebrows rising at something he felt in the other's grip before releasing his hand.

"You're rather strong." Arthur comments, shaking his hand. Lloyd looks startled, a little worried, and Dumbledore vanishes.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Lloyd asks, taking his hand back. "I forget that my grip is good, and accidently hurt people..." Arthur shakes his head.

"What's with all the noise...?" Harry was pleased to not be the center of the twin's quiet attention as the newest male came down the stairs. Yuan had yet to do his hair back, which meant it fell down to his hips in a fairly even bright blue curtain as his hands did up his loose shirt. "No one told me we would have guests..." Harry thought he saw a blue gem, but he couldn't have been sure with the speed that Yuan's hands moved.

"This is our lazy moocher." Kratos says, tilting his head to Yuan. "Yuan Ka-Fai. Also of the Tenshi." Again with the unfamiliar word.

"I'm not lazy. I was reading." Yuan says, frowning slightly as he noticed the rapt attention of two identical redheads. "And I'm your half-brother, remember?"

"As if I could forget."

"Who jinxed you?" Fred asked of Yuan, looking up as the lean man pulled his hair into a ponytail and tied it back with a band that had been on his wrist.

"What...?" Yuan asks, looking a little confused, and a little annoyed at said confusion.

"Your hair. It's blue." George points out.

"Yeah. It is." Yuan says slowly. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Blue isn't a natural hair color." Percy says, a tiny frown on his face. Yuan glances at him, finishing his hair work as he carefully walks to the kitchen.

"It's mine. Besides, Aurian's hair is pale lavender, just more silver than that." The little mob of boys turn to peer up at Aurian's hair as she sticks her tongue out at Yuan as the male passes her, spotting the boiling water with a quick smile. "... Anyone want tea? Milk? I think we might have some orange juice... Is this pomegranate juice...?" The large Wizarding family blinks as a little black-haired blur darts into the kitchen to get one of the bottles of Orange juice from Yuan. Harry moves to stand behind the blue haired male as the red haired family peers' in. "I won't bite. And he won't unless you go for his juice." Yuan says, teasing Harry.

"Harry, be polite." Aurian says, smiling softly.

"Don't take after Kratos. We don't need more antisocial people in this house." Kratos snorted at Yuan's comment.

"...hi." Harry takes a half step out from behind Yuan as the tall man picks his own tea blend, which Harry knew from experience tasted disgusting, and set out the other varieties on the counter, pouring himself a mug of boiling water. "I'm Harry Potter." He smiled as the smell of Yuan's heavily aromatic tea hit him. Kratos blinked as he seemed to realize something.

"...Kratos Aurion. Tenshi, as well." Molly blinked at the tall man.

"You're all siblings? But for Lloyd and Harry?" She asks of Aurian, Kratos and Yuan.

"Yuan is close enough to be attached at the hip." Kratos sighs. "Fortunately, we are spared that."

"We're brothers. Half-brothers." Yuan says.

"Kratos is my dad." Lloyd says with his grin.

"And..." Kratos and Aurian look at each other. "...We're married, except for the fact we never actually went to a church, exchanged rings and formally said vows." This seemed to startle the friendly woman and her husband, and after a moment of quiet conferring that had Aurian looking confused, they turned to the taller adults, and liked arms with one each.

"We'll take care of that." The two wand-wizards said. "Sometime next summer sound like a good wedding date?" Aurian and Kratos have mirrored expressions of shock on their faces.

* * *

So. I know i made that rather quick, but hte Weasleys are rather friendly folk, even if Dumbley hadn't prompted them to be more so(and i'm not saying he did.)

and you all know that 7y old Harry and Ron would be adorable.

For Symphonians, find a Japanese-English translation thingy on hte internet, and all will be clear.

for those who haven't finished Tales of Symphonia, please don't.

And i haven't really written that part. i might just make a side-story of snippits for this story.

and, a quick little reveiw-for-an-eCookie.

Do long chapters (like, 7-10k words) make you not really want to read?

or is it just that Harry Potter is infinitely more popular than Tales of Symphonia or Fire Emblem? combined?


	5. B1: Shopping

So! Finally into books.

Not really _finally_ but ...

yeah.

tiny bit of plot holes, i know, but...

_who gives a shit_

if ya do, ya wouldn't be reading at this point :D

* * *

"So, there's a month until the first year of school right?" Lloyd was leaning back in his chair. He didn't look too much older, despite the four years Harry had lived with them. Then again, there hadn't been any visible changes to the adults either.

"That's what the letter said." Now a little over 11, Harry was still shortest of the lot. Lloyd was nearly level with Yuan now, and the gravity defying hair didn't help. Did he put a spell on it? "And they gave me a school list as well..."

"School." Kratos blinks after muttering the word, before he looks over at Lloyd. "... School." It sounded plotting, accepting, the second time he said it, and Lloyd blinks warily at his father. "..." Lloyd doesn't get off the couch fast enough to get away from Kratos, who slipped his arms under Lloyd's and carried him off.

"Hey! What're you doing? Lemme go!"

"So we have to go shopping?" Yuan says, walking in as Kratos with Lloyd walked out. Harry wasn't that surprised to find his list was in the half-elf's hand. Things left out had a habit of coming into Yuan's possession. "This stuff would get us strange looks from the normal folk. I assume the magic folk here have their own little society, the way the... Weasleys, acted. Aurian won't be able to come, so that would mean Kratos and I, at least..." Yuan blinked, and glanced back, before his normally cold, calculating expression turned into a wide grin as he processed the sight of Kratos carrying a protesting Lloyd. "This is going to be great... Lloyd's going to be coming. Should we call up the Weasleys? I don't think any of us know how to get the supplies." Yuan glanced slyly at Harry when the preteen jumped up to go look for the phone. "And you want to see Ron again, hm? Not that, remember? They called it 'fellytone'. We use this stuff on the fire." Yuan crouches before the fireplace as Harry went to find better clothes to wear than his pajamas, returning to see the blue-haired male sticking his head into the fireplace and talking.

"They'll be here shortly. I'll get the shields down, and see if Kratos is done yet." Yuan wanders off, and a teen a little taller than him wanders in, brunette, looking annoyed. He spotted Harry, and wandered over, cheerily grinning.

"Hi Harry!" the boy sounds familiar, but only looks slightly familiar. Wearing Lloyd's clothes, just a smaller size, twin belts loosely about his waist, and suspenders complete. There where white streamers extending from his collar, and the hair was nearly identical.

"Who are you?" Harry asks, looking at the boy. "And why are you wearing Lloyd's clothes?"

"Because I am Lloyd." The boy says, still grinning nearly wickedly. "Dad wants to send me to school again. I don't see why – I memorized my times tables, I should be done. But anyway, this magic sounds kinda interesting. I'm now physically 11 years old." Harry didn't have time to do more than nod, when the door knocked. "I'll get it!" Lloyd shouts, running for the door. The white strips of cloth flicked out behind him as he did so, and then he throws open the door. "Hi!" Lloyd's enthusiasm fitted his new age. "That was fast." Arthur, Molly, the Twins, Percy and Ron blink down at the boy that had the face, hair, and voice of the adult they knew. Lloyd's warm brown eyes dance. "It's me. Lloyd. Since you guys didn't recognize me, I guess it's really well done." The twins move over to look at the now shorter boy.

"Hey, the hair's the same-"

"-little pigtails and all. So-"

"- you're really Lloyd? Not-"

"-some little critter taking Lloyd's face and voice?" Lloyd laughs at Fred and George, moving back so the party can enter the house.

"Do you really think that Dad would let something imitate me?" Lloyd asks with a smirk, standing back as said male and Yuan head to the front room, Aurian moving with Harry. Harry noticed that the tall woman was looking a little ashen as she leaned against the wall, her long ears nearly brushing her shoulders, drooping with some emotion that didn't make it to her face. She looked vaguely tired. "Besides, I want to see if I can learn this sort of magic." Lloyd says, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"So, who's going?" Molly asks, heading into the house to gingerly hug the taller woman, Aurian blinking at Ms Weasley. The red haired witch still thought the tall woman frail.

"Kratos and I, as well as Lloyd." Yuan says, crossing his arms. He wore a black coat today, over his normal, loose white pants, while Kratos wore his navy turtleneck and matching pants, a belt slung loosely about his waist. "And Harry, of course."

"Not you, Aurian?" Ms Weasley asks, looking up at the elf's face. Aurian offers a slight smile, looking mildly pained.

"No... I do not fare well in crowds..." Aurian said, tilting her head, before bringing her thin fingers up to her ears. "It.. is a little too loud. I start to panic." Mr. Weasley blinked up at her, before fishing in his pockets.

"If it's noise, I think I have some ear-plugs with some little enchantment on them in here somewhere..."

"No, it's fine...." Aurian says with a slightly forced smile, waving her hands. "There... is more than one kind of noise.... It's not just the voices and bustle that cause me trouble." At the curious, mildly worried faces turned up to her she looks a little like she wishes she had just left, rather than said anything. "I see, hear, and feel things that distract me too much in great numbers of people. I see magic, both cores and enchantments, and can read, and feel, other people's thoughts." At the looks of surprise and steps backs she waves her hands in a negative again. "It's not bad when it's small numbers, I can ignore the thoughts for not being my own, but in large numbers, I'm overwhelmed, and my mind mistakes some for my own, and it isn't very helpful, or comfortable."

"She's tried walking in two directions, while half trying to sing.. something, in a language she didn't know, and half trying to hold an angry conversation with a wife that none of us knew, while her arms remained hers, and tried to cover her mouth and grab onto one of us, but she got the arm swapped up somehow." Yuan says, as Kratos rubs his forehead.

"It's not very common, that it happens, but in excess of four hundred people in ... half a mile?" Lloyd glances at his father and the blue haired half-elf for confirmation. "She starts getting confused, and more than six hundred makes her start doing things she doesn't mean to." Aurian winces, drawing back. Harry thought, if he could read the expression on her face correctly, that she looked like she was expecting people to tell her that they hated her and she was a horrible freak of nature. Percy, the oldest boy with them, looked shocked enough, but the Twins were awed, Ron mildly confused, and the adult pair just looked at each other.

"So you're a leginimens." Mr. Weasley says. Aurian blinks.

"I thought it was called Telepathy." Aurian said this like she was pretty sure she was wrong. Kratos shrugs.

"Different names for similar, or same things. They call it Magic, we call it Mana Manipulation. They call it cores, we call it reserves, or bodily Mana. They call it apprating, we call it warping, or teleportation." Kratos says, the look on his face saying this was nothing new. "They call it a wand, we call it a focus."

* * *

conversation nuke!

* * *

"Well, we'll need to go to Gringotts first." Mr. Weasley says. "I don't think you have any Wizarding money, but I know that Harry has his family's vault." Yuan and Kratos look at each other, then at Lloyd.

"... I'll go see what we have that we can sell." Kratos says, shrugging. "Aurian, you keep the objects you do not care for at the front, correct?" Aurian tilts her head, thinking as she reached over and drew a line with a finger down the air at shoulder height. Light seemed to be sucked in to make a dark line where she did that.

"I keep everything non-magical in the front... so yes." Aurian stepped back, moving and sitting down at the table with Yuan's mug, the paper and some of the homework. Kratos steps over, and sticks his hand into the darkness, reaching in up to his shoulder with no change to the thin line, or the space behind it, his shoulder moving like he was reaching for things inside something. Kratos pauses when he notices that the Weasley family was staring at him, before he studies them for a moment, and continues moving like he was gathering objects, pulling back a sack. The mark in the air vanishes.

"I think I knocked something over." Kratos was studying his hand for a moment, before he pulled strings from the neck of his bag and swung it over one shoulder. Lloyd blinked at the slight familiar sense he got seeing his dad this way, but the Weasleys hurried over to the floo, and the fireplace, with Yuan, Harry and he in tow. Kratos brought up the rear.

"I'll take care of it. Keep myself entertained while you're away." Lloyd was practically bouncing as he watched the flames go green and wizard after wizard vanish.

"Leaky Cauldron." Lloyd heard Yuan say this with a tone of disbelief, before releasing the handful of powder and vanishing.

"Leaky Cauldron." Lloyd said, and was abruptly spun in circles. When he took a step out, he nearly bumped into Yuan as the tall male held a hand over his mouth, looking green. "That's right. Spinning you is a recipe for disaster." Yuan shoved him lightly with his free hand, stepping to sit in a chair in what seemed to be a pub.

"And you thought I said cliché things." Kratos appeared next, calmly taking a step forward then dusting down his clothes. They looked the strangest of the lot by simply wearing normal clothing.

"You all ok? Forgot to let you know it spins a bit." Molly asks them, after taking a headcount of her own.

"Fine." Yuan says, standing and dusting ash from his clothes.

"You've got your letter, right Harry?" Molly asks as they move away from the fireplace. Harry patted his pockets, and then Yuan calmly extended a hand with the folded parchment in it. "We'll just have to double it for Lloyd as well."

"Already got the protective gloves." Lloyd says, pulling on Yuan's arm to make the paper at his new level so he could read. "Get them resized of course, but I think the Penguinist gloves would work for some things..."

"Might as well get something they deem appropriate." Kratos says, standing behind Yuan to quickly look over the list, before his eyes travel to the Weasleys. "...we have some items to trade for coin.. Where would we do such a thing?"

"Gringotts bank." Arthur says. "It's in Diagon Alley. We'll head there first." By now, some of the people in the pub were not staring at the trio of somewhat normally dressed males with their vivid colors, but at Harry. The small preteen heard whispers of "It's him! It's Harry!" and "Harry! It's Harry Potter!", that sort. There was a trembling young man who looked at Harry, but didn't seem to want to come near, or get to close to the watchful Kratos and Yuan, who had moved to side and flank respectively. "Follow me." Mr. Weasley led the part of his brood and Harry's adoptive family into a back courtyard, moving to the brick wall, and counting bricks. Kratos had tilted his head to one side, looking about speculatively as Lloyd moves trash with a foot. Arthur Weasley tapped a brick three times with his wand, and the whole wall shook, shivered as individual bricks trembled and moved away from each other to form an archway.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley."

"Cool!" Lloyd says, jumping up and down as he nearly started climbing the wall, Kratos reaching over and grabbing him by the back of the shirt to keep him with them. They reached a snowy white building, squat humanoids that the twins pointed out to be goblins in front of the doors, who bowed them in.

"Over there, Kratos." Ms Weasley pointed the tall male to a side where goblins sat with scales behind desks that made them at head height for average humanoid height.

"Dumbledore gave us the key to give Harry for his vault." Mr. Weasley pulled out a small golden key, and handed it to Harry. Kratos was talking in an undertone to the goblin he was working with, taking various items of what looked to be both semi and precious metals from the sack that should not have fit them all.

"Is it possible... to add funds to an account, not my own? With or without the true owners knowing." Kratos asks, his attention pretending to wander off the slip of parchment with the monies that the items would give him.

"They would need to agree." The goblin says.

"... A nod would suffice?" Kratos asks, his eyes half closing with a tiny, plotting smile. When the goblin agreed, Kratos turned to the Weasley family. "Lloyd will be going with you, is that alright?" when one of the Weasley adults nodded back, Kratos returned to facing the goblin. "You have your nod of agreement." When the goblin looked at him speculatively, as Kratos marked numbers under those that he would be given, Kratos shrugs. "Our family is much smaller. We do not have needs for such funds." Kratos passed the slip back. "We would keep a fourth. The rest, put in the Weasley accounts."

"Would you like to make an account?" the goblin asks, taking the items, the slip and writing notes for exchanging the money.

"... Tenshi." Kratos says. "Tenshi family.... Leave enough out for school supplies for six students, including wands for at least three. I'll take that with me." The Weasleys have already left with Lloyd and Harry, leaving Yuan up top with Kratos.

"Got the money?" Yuan asks, as Kratos slings his sack back over his shoulder.

"Have you the lists?" Kratos asks as a reply as they head out of Gringotts. Yuan rolls his eyes, producing the folded papers.

"Of course. I'm not so out of practice that I can't get paper."

"Could have fooled me. I'll cover books, you cover other supplies. Clothes will have to wait, as well as pets..." Yuan grimaces in sync with Kratos's frown.

"Wonder how well that will go over."

* * *

Yeah.

they won't be pleased.

but, then again, i don't think Yuan or Kratos _cares_.

and they don't need the money D:

I OWN NOTHING.

I hope i own Aurian.

Dammit D: short chapters make me feel bad inside...


	6. B1: Wands

When the Weasleys plus two returned to the surface, they found Kratos and Yuan sitting near the door, sorting out bags.

"What did you two do, go on a shopping spree?" Lloyd asks as they regroup.

"No." Yuan says. "Here, Twins, Percy." He passed over two bags, and then one for the prefect, the paper lists for each on top. "And Ron." He passes over the first year's supplies, as Kratos gave Lloyd and Harry a bag each.

"What?" the Weasleys seemed a little shocked at this. "You didn't have to."

"We wanted to." The half elf and human said, shrugging together.

"We.. We can't accept charity." Mr. Weasley says, frowning at his hands.

"Then it's not." Lloyd says. "They're repaying you for all the trouble you have gone through to teach us about your world."

"And for the wedding." Yuan adds, while Kratos looked away. "We didn't get robes, or anything for pets or wands, so you can use your funds for that." Lloyd brightened at the word 'pets'. "I think we'll be heading for robes next."

"We'll meet back up at the Leaky Cauldron then." The Weasleys seemed to give in. Kratos almost had to step in to stop Lloyd from jumping on the boy who was trash talking various sorts of families, and then the half-elf as the man waited outside.

"You're going to have to behave yourself better than that if you want to go to the school." Kratos says, shouldering the bag of robes.

"I know, I know." Lloyd growls, sticking his hands in his pockets deep, a frown on his face. "I just really hate that sort of talk. And he sounded like a spoiled brat."

"We agree." Kratos says with a slight shrug. "But that doesn't mean you should try to hit him." Harry wondered why the man said 'we', but ignored it when he saw where they were heading.

"Owls?" Lloyd asks, looking at the sign.

"Yes. They seem less likely to be displeased with odd things, even in nature. You both can get one." Inside, Harry was drawn to a snowy owl, while Lloyd looked over all of them, watching as several went quiet, or woke to stare as Kratos and Yuan passed. There was one, a European Eagle Owl, who watched Kratos back with its unblinking stare when the red haired man stopped to look at it, perfectly calm.

"Hm?" Lloyd stopped to look up at the bird too when Kratos hadn't moved for a minute or two.

"... Reminds me of Aeros. The coloring is far off... but the stare..." Kratos mutters.

"Noishe looked like that?" Lloyd asks, peering at the large owl as Yuan helps Harry pay for his snowy. "... So, can I get him?"

"He's not reacting badly to our presence, it should be fine. Aurian seems to like him as well." Lloyd blinks, before glancing up to see flecks of gold in Kratos's pupils.

"She's watching too?"

"She got bored."

"Explains the we." Leaving the shop, both boys compared their owls. The one Lloyd had picked was larger, a bit more fierce looking, awake and looking displeased with this fact. Harry's snowy was still managing to sleep, and female.

"Watcha gunna call her?" Lloyd asks, careful not to bounce too much after being excited caused his owl to glare at him.

"Hedwig." Harry says after a moment of thought. "What're you going to call yours?"

"...hmm.." Lloyd thought, as they followed Yuan down the Alley for a place called Ollivanders. "Last pet I had, his name was Noishe. So, can't call him that..." Lloyd brightened. "Aeros." Kratos smiles, shaking his head.

"Real creative brat. Thought you might go for Sylph or something." Lloyd stuck his tongue out at Yuan's back, before all four of them headed into the shop. The birds were set down, and the first part of the small room looked over.

"Good afternoon." A soft voice, masculine where Aurian's was feminine, made Harry jump, and the three other males turn sharply for the speaker. An old man stood before them, his wide, pale eyes shining.

"Hello." Harry says, Lloyd a half-beat after, and a bit more cheery.

"Ah yes." The man said. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question, and the black-haired boy blinked. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charms work." Yuan muffled what sounded like a groan as the man moved closer to Harry. "Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches, pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration." Lloyd blinks and frowns at this large word. "Well, I say your father favored it – it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course." Mr. Ollivander stood almost nose to nose with Harry. Kratos was ignoring all this, Lloyd trying to figure out the word by his mutterings, and Yuan was watching blankly.

"And that's where...." the store-owner lightly touched the scar on Harry's forehead. "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it." He said softly. "Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... Well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do..." he shook his head, and his eyes found the adults. "... I don't believe I've sold either of you a wand."

"We managed to learn to use different focuses." Kratos says, turning his eyes back to Ollivander and Harry. "We're interested now, in seeing the difference."

"Wand-less magic? Most interesting, most interesting." Ollivander's eyes flicked to Yuan, and then Lloyd. "Your son?"

"Yes. He's going to join Harry at Hogwarts." Kratos says, his attention wandering again.

"We've gained custody of Harry." Yuan shrugs as he says this, like it didn't mean much. "The folks he had been staying with weren't that... fond, of magic, or of him. Muggles, your word."

"Very well, very well. We'll start with Mr. Potter." Ollivander said, pulling out a long tape measure. "Which is your wand arm?" Due to time with the Weasleys, he knew this meant his dominant hand now.

"Right." Harry said.

"Hold out your arm. That's it." Ollivander measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and around his head. As he was doing so, he was watched by Lloyd, who stood next to his adoptive brother and watched each measure, and the store-keeper said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter, Sirs. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand." Harry noticed the measuring tape was measuring on its own while Mr. Ollivander looked through shelves. Harry went through a small mountain of wands before a holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, shot gold and red sparks from the tip once he shifted his arm. Lloyd laughed at the sparks, attempting to catch some, while Yuan cracked a smile and Kratos stopped reading one of Harry's text books.

"Next, master...?" Ollivander looked at Lloyd, who abruptly realized he was trying to catch sparks and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Lloyd Aurion." Lloyd said.

"Wand hand?" Ollivander asks, getting his measuring tape again. Lloyd frowns.

"Ambidextrous. I use both just about equally." Lloyd says, looking at his two hands.

"Pick one." Ollivander says, and Lloyd sticks out his as ever gloved, left hand. "Would you mind taking off the glove?" Lloyd looks at his red glove, and takes it off. He wore a bracelet, with a blue-purple gem on a tear-drop shaped golden brown pendant with runes staying firm across the back of his hand. Harry had his box of wrapped wand, and sat next to Hedwig on the floor, watching curiously, as Kratos pulled the book back out and continued reading with an amused expression on his face. Ollivander measured the same on Lloyd as he had on Harry.

"Fit boy, aren't you?" Ollivander moved for his shelves again as the measuring tape moved across Lloyd, Lloyd watching it with curiosity.

"I like to run." Lloyd also had an impressive amount of wands that didn't work for him, before Ollivander pulled one out, fir, a little under seven inches, with a core of salamander bone that caused turquoise feathers and golden sparks to appear in the air when Lloyd moved his hand. Both Kratos and Yuan looked a little startled at this, and they glanced at each other over Harry's head, before Yuan gave a wry shrug, and looked back over at where Ollivander was wrapping Lloyd's box.

"Next?"

"Yuan Ka-Fai." Yuan offered his right hand to Ollivander, his hands in gloves that left the half-elf's lithe fingers clear. The measuring tape seemed to want to get in a fight with his long hair, while Ollivander climbed his shelved room to bring back boxes for the adult.

"I must admit, I've never tried to find a wand for a man, let alone one not full human." Yuan tilted his head as he wrapped his calloused fingers gently about the first, only to have it snatched. "Why are you interested in our magic?"

"It doesn't rely on blood." Yuan says, after a second, getting his hair free and shoving the long tail down his shirt back. "You don't have to have a certain gene to be able to use it. Seems a little more fair."

"I see." Yuan too went through at least a dozen wands, before one of maple, a little oddly formed, just over a foot and a half inch, with a core of Veela hair shot violet-white sparks and pink feathers.

"And you, sir?" Ollivander asked as he wrapped Yuan's wand. Kratos offered his left hand, already stripped of its glove with a strange, paler spot on the back in a oval shape, scars lining his large hand.

"Kratos Aurion." Ollivander started measuring the tall man, but paused, peering into crimson eyes.

"You're two people."

"Currently." Kratos agreed. "My wife dislikes crowds, but wanted to see. She's watching, due to a bit of magic."

"Would she be interested in a wand as well?" Ollivander resumed measuring, and Harry saw Kratos grow eerily still, before blinking down at the old man.

"She is curious." Kratos said, a slow drawl when Ollivander handed the first wand to him, only for it to be snatched before he could curl his fingers. He too went through a dozen, before a rune-inscribed yew, ten inches, with salamander bone core shot out sparks of various blues and feathers that matched. Ollivander turned to wrap the wand, and Kratos tilted his head back, a hiss registering his breath racing out. When he turned back around, Kratos was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands, and Aurian was there. She looked a little skittish, her thin hands quickly moving together and knotting fingers.

"Sorry, can't stay long. Too many voices." She blinked down at the small old man, as he blinked up at her. "Hi. Yes, I am rather tall. I can't gain weight, unfortunately, so I'm still looking like a stick. Can we finish this before I go more mad than I am?"

"Yes, of course, wand arm?" Aurian blinked rapidly in succession, before extending her left hand. She held it in front of her so Harry couldn't see more than that the gloves were gone. Ollivander could apparently see much more, for he stared at her long pale hand before setting his measuring tape to work.

"yes, I'm damaged. I've been changed. I'm awkward. A freak." Aurian mutters rapidly.

"I wasn't going to go there." Ollivander says delicately, as he fits the first of what would be half a dozen wands into Aurian's long fingered grasp. She was left with a blood wood wand, which was 12 and ¼ inches, with a core of dragon claw. The elf vanished, and only then did Kratos look up. They paid for the wands, and then returned to the Leaky Cauldron to meet up with the Weasleys. On the way, Lloyd and Harry spotted an ice cream place, so they stopped there to get two cones for the preteens. On the way back, the Weasley adults once again attempted to repay the adult males. When they arrived at the house, Aurian put a stop to it.

"Look. Molly, Arthur, we don't need much money. We've a small family, and we're not very extravagant folk. There are five of us, and three of us work. You need it more than we do, and we see that, and aren't going to take no for an answer. If you must rationalize it, we're paying you back for actually getting the whole wedding set up. We'd never have gotten around to it on our own." Aurian said, crossing her long arms. "Besides, I have plenty more mundane objects to sell if we ever need more. It will take years before we even get close to seeing the enchanted or magical items, even if we had to bring the same sack size to that bank every month."

* * *

Yeah. its kinda choppy.

I know about that thing in the fourth book, but Aurian looks human, if a little mad, and what wizard/witch can't claim to be completely sane?

meh.

I'm not sure if hte weasleys know that they aren't human(as in Yuan and Aurian) but Harry knows, so the story knows.


	7. B1: Trains

Yaaaaaay. Mooooreeee..

Read the first for that disclaimer thingymabob.

Now. I'm a lazy bum, so i skip around a bit. i'll miss things i don't have a particular want to write. But they might come up later. i'll make little _fancy flashback moments_ or something, to tell you that stuff happened and what not. in anycase. We're moving forward!

* * *

"It's September first!" Lloyd woke Harry up, yet again, with a cheerful yell and this time, jumping on the black haired preteen's bed. Harry blinked awake to find the magically 11-year olds face a few inched away from his own, warm brown eyes sparkling. "Wake up, Harry! There's a train to catch!" Harry put his hand in Lloyd's face and shoved the hyper preteen from his face, his other hand reaching for his glasses only for Lloyd to laugh and put them on the black-haired boy.

* * *

Harry wasn't completely clear on how they got to Kings Crossing. He was fairly certain that cars that looked like boats didn't exist to drive on streets. Especially when they got out and he walked down the street with Lloyd and Kratos for a few minutes, and stopped at Yuan's shout to find the vehicle completely gone and the blue haired man racing to join up with them. Lloyd was grinning widely, so he guessed it was... normal. Like anything could be normal with this group.

* * *

"We have to walk into a brick wall?" Lloyd asks, staring at the wall, keeping his cage along with him. His trunk, or at least what he claimed had all his clothes and other supplies, was a pouch upon his belt. The teen wore a red jacket, without the stud-like buttons or streamers, but had a white scarf to make up for the lack of the latter, and dark slacks. Harry had a sweater of Aurian make, which meant it wasn't knit, but of dark green fabric resistant to stain and fire, and jeans. Kratos and Yuan were with them this time, the red-haired man wearing a navy turtleneck and jeans, his hands in his pockets as he watched the normal folk with half closed eyes, the blue haired in a dark jacket, red shirt and jeans. Lloyd shrugged a second later. "Well, not the strangest thing I've ever been told to do. I'll try." Ms Weasley and the youngest five of the family waited for Lloyd to wander through the wall, and vanish rather than crunch into it. Percy and the Twins vanished through the bricks next, and then Harry followed by Kratos, a personal shadow with an opposite twin of Yuan. Lloyd was seen darting through people toward a violet train, Aeros vocally displeased, but not angry enough to beat at the cage with his wings.

"Lloyd! Get a compartment-"

"-For your brother and Ron!" the twins shout, moving up to the train, talking to a dark skinned youth. Percy had already vanished, and Ron, his mother and sister, were right behind Kratos and Harry. Lloyd waves that he heard them, and jumps into the train, nearly braining someone with Aeros's cage. Kratos had a slight smirk on as he watched. Harry crammed on behind them, his own trunk getting the help of Kratos to get on the train.

"We'll see you diagonally." Yuan calls to the Weasley group, heading off. Ms Weasley was talking to her brood before the train let out a piercing whistle that caused Kratos to flinch and cover their ears, Lloyd mimicking the gesture from inside the compartment he was saving for Ron and Harry. The Weasleys quickly scattered back onto the train, Ron finding their compartment as Ginny ran alongside the train for a few seconds, Kratos remaining still on the platform with Ms Weasley.

"Trains are pretty fast." Lloyd says, his attention on the landscape as it moves past them. Harry and Ron take up seats near the brunette teen.

"What did Yuan mean by that? 'See you diagonally.' Isn't diagonally a direction?" Harry asks, suddenly remembering the blue haired man's words.

"They're both mad, it's probably nothing." Lloyd mutters.

"They were going to go to Diagon Alley with Ginny and Mum." Lloyd blinks, looking at Ron and thinking by his expression. "Something about looking into potions." Lloyd suddenly grins, laughing.

"I get it! Diagonally. Diagon Alley. Ha!" Around noon a trolley came by full of Wizarding snacks and candies, Lloyd and Harry got a handful or each, Lloyd promptly dumping all but the chocolates on Ron.

"These are great." Lloyd said, snatching a chocolate frog from the air and shoving it head first into his mouth. "Need to send some to dad. Do you think they'll melt if I kept 'em in my pocket until tomorrow?"

"They're enchanted, they shouldn't."

"Great. Dad'll get a kick out of these." Lloyd then shoved a handful of the chocolates in his pants pocket. A sugar filled hour later, a teary boy opened their compartment door.

"Sorry." He said. "But have you seen a toad at all?" Lloyd blinks at him, one chocolaty leg poking from his mouth as the frog he'd just popped in continued to fight. When they shook their heads, the boy wailed. "I've lost him! He just keeps getting away from me!"

"Put a leash on him." Lloyd says, wiping chocolate from his face, as Harry offers "He'll turn up."

"Yes." The boy says miserably. "Well, if you see him..." and with that, he slid the door shut. Lloyd moved from his window seat to lean against the wall of the compartment next to the door. From the way his eyes traveled, he was getting restless. He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head, and appeared to start to sleep. The compartment door opened again, and three boys entered. Harry recognized the one that Lloyd had almost jumped in the middle, and from the way that Lloyd's eyes narrowed when he glanced at the platinum blond, he did too.

"Is it true?" the boy asks. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, isn't it?"

"Yes." Harry says, looking at the blonde's shadows. Body guards, mean looking, maybe.

"Oh, this is Crabbe, and this is Goyle." The pale boy says carelessly, noting where Harry was looking. "And my name is Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." Ron coughed slightly and Draco looked at him, missing Lloyd's shift from sprawled to sitting up and intently watching. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford." He did a slight double take. "What's this? A Weasley not in hand-me-downs? Did you steal those clothes or something?" Crabbe and Goyle chuckle stupidly like the lackeys they seemed to be.

"So, you just a snob?" Lloyd asks his voice a drawl like Yuan's when the half-elf was saying something particularly sarcastic. "Or do you have a pole shoved so far up your ass that it's affecting your brain and the way your head sits? Oh, right. What brain?" Crabbe and Goyle didn't shut up fast enough to not seem like they were laughing at what Lloyd said, as Ron turned red and Harry blinked once or twice. Somehow, the light made Lloyd's eyes dance with flicks of red. Malfoy didn't go red, he went paler with fury.

"And just who are you?"

"I don't see the need to introduce myself to someone who clings to possessions and blood for social status." Lloyd says, still with Yuan's drawl and mischievous glint to his eyes.

"A mud blood, then. Or a muggle-born." Draco brushes off Lloyd as simple as that, and in turning away, missed Lloyd's tightening of his jaw. "You have to start associating with the right families, Potter. Some are much better than others. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." Draco offered his hand to Harry, who stared at his hand like it was something dangerous, as Lloyd slowly stood.

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.." Harry says. Now Draco's face changed color, to a pale pink across his cheeks.

"Be careful, Potter. You hang around riff raff like the Weasleys and mixed bloods, it'll rub off on you." Harry and Ron stood, Ron looking a little nervous about the tension suddenly in the cabin. Lloyd was clenching and unclenching his jaw and fists, his eyes in a glare.

"Say that again." Ron said, his face as red as his hair.

"Oh, you going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.

"Splendid idea." Lloyd breathes, his voice dangerously cold as he cracked his knuckles, gaining the three's attention once more. "I think I'm liking that one. Don't go crying to your dear _right sort of family_ when I beat the snot out of you." Harry grabbed Lloyd's arm.

"Unless you leave right now." Harry says. He'd seen Lloyd spar with Kratos and Yuan, he knew what the elder version of the teen could do, and he didn't want to see what the pre-teen could.

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some." Malfoy says. Crabbe reaches for some sweets between Lloyd and Harry, and the brunette twists his arm out of Harry's grasp, grabbing Crabbe's in a red-gloved grip. The larger boy grunts and stops, his arm pale about Lloyd's hand.

"I'll give you a count of five, and then a free punch, if you like." Lloyd says, voice still dangerously cold, his grip keeping Crabbe's arm still despite the larger boy's grunting and yanking. "At me, not the other two. How about it? It'll be three against one, if your little prissy _master _will deign to get his hands dirty. I'm betting that it'll be two on one, you bully boys against me." Malfoy went white-pale again as Lloyd released Crabbe's arm, the large boy taking a step back and holding his arm. Malfoy reached over and slapped Lloyd across the face. Lloyd's head barely moved from the pale boy's full armed blow, and Lloyd retaliated by slamming his fist into Malfoy's face, cracking the nose and sending blood flowing, gaining a yelp from the boy.

"Wow. You hit like a girl." Lloyd says, moving his jaw, and then touching his cheek. "Wait, no. I know girls who hit harder. You hit like someone who's_ never had to lift a finger to defend themselves in their life_." Malfoy was busying himself with stemming the blood from his apparently broken nose, while Crabbe made a louder, angrier grunt, and swung for Lloyd's face. Lloyd moved enough that his head wouldn't completely jerk about from the blow, but his nose did crack and spout blood. Lloyd, unlike Malfoy, didn't yelp at the blow, but grinned through the blood. "That's more like it! I don't have to worry so much about hitting you." Lloyd twisted away from Goyle, and slammed his shoulder into Crabbe, his fist moving under his shoulder to slam into the larger male's gut, sending him staggering back. Footsteps pounded down the hall, as Lloyd moved for Goyle, his arms pulled back to launch a flurry of fists that hit as often as not, sending him out into the hall, although Lloyd was clipped on the side of the face first. Malfoy had moved outside the compartment when Lloyd moved in on Crabbe, which only left Goyle in the hall, before he too vanished. A bushy haired brunette girl, in new Hogwarts robes, came up next.

"What is going on here?" she asked, taking in the slight mess in the compartment due to food and their wrappings, and the mess on Lloyd due to a bruise forming on the side of his face and his bloody nose. "You've been fighting, haven't you? You'll get in trouble before we even get there!"

"Yeah." Lloyd says with a casual shrug as he pulls an already stained cloth out of his pocket and holds it to his nose. "This isn't anything bad, though. Besides, rule of self-defense. They hit me first; therefore anything I did to them was purely defense." Lloyd fixes his own nose with a crack that makes the bushy-haired girl and Ron shudder, and blows more blood out into his cloth. "I've had worse." His warm brown eyes darken; harden, for a second, before he turns to the girl. "Did you need something?" he asks cheerfully, still holding the stained cloth to his nose.

"No- you'd better hurry up and put your robes on. I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there." The girl looks at Lloyd as he cheerfully feels his hands, then uses the glass to try to see if his nose was relatively strait. "You're a complete savage, aren't you?"

"No." Lloyd says with a grin, fixing his nose again with another awful noise. "I know how to use silverware, read, and I can cook things other than meat on a stick over an open flame."

"Do you mind leaving so we can change?" Ron asks as the girl blinks at Lloyd's response, and then shuts the compartment door. Lloyd grumbled as he pulled the robes over his head, removing the scarf only to put it back on once he finished, leaving jacket and gloves in place. Ron and Harry shed their jackets before putting on their robes.

"I'm wearing a dress." Was Lloyd's main complaint. "Now I understand why mages don't run, or don't move quickly. It's because you can't wearing these things." Lloyd complains as he moves about the cabin, getting his feet tangled with the cloth.

"Don't just step, kick your feet out, then bring your foot back a little to step." Ron offers. "That's what my brothers said to do."(1)

"Lloyd, you didn't have to break his nose." Harry says, shifting his robes.

"It was going to be his nose, or his arm. I figured I'd get in more trouble for breaking his arm than his nose." Lloyd says casually, shifting his clothes beneath his robe. "Worse case, his nose will heal crooked, and he'll either hate, or be scared of me for the rest of school. And broken noses heal a lot faster than broken arms. He'll be fine."

* * *

yeah. I had fun with that.

(1) I figured out how to walk in one(robe). Cosplay/Halloween. I understand why Mages/Wizards have low Agl/AC/Def... they can barely move quickly while keeping their Wizardly Dignaty (aka, not hiking up their robes and dashing)... and mine is warm/heavy.

Reveiw with those questionies you have growing, if you like. I don't really have anything I thought to (2), But if you all have confusions, lemme know. but if i think its too spoilerish, i wont tell ya :D


	8. B1: School

Yeah. Another one.

Disclaimer on first.

* * *

They got in a boat, and were joined by the bushy haired girl, who managed to chatter almost the entire time across the lake. Her name was Hermione Granger, and she had read and practically memorized all the course books by heart, and wasn't the black-haired boy Harry Potter? She'd read about him in three different magic books, and why didn't he know the things about himself that she knew about him? If it'd been her, she'd read all she could find out.

"I got my school books less than a week ago." Harry finally said. "I looked through them, and then kept them packed." This shut the girl up for a little while, and then they reached the grand castle at last. Lloyd nearly capsized the boat when he leapt off, apparently now used to the robes. The brunette seemed thrilled with the castle, the ghosts that wandered through the room where stern-faced McGonagall left them for a few minutes, and he nearly walked into the boy before him due to staring at the floating candles and the ceiling of night sky.

"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_." Hermione whispered to them as the first years formed a long line between the teacher's table, and four that held students with a scattering of ghosts. A stool sat before them, and a battered hat upon that. Lloyd cracked a grin when the hat began to sing, and Harry paid more attention to the words than Lloyd did, the brunette humming the tune.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat, and sit on the stool to be sorted." McGonagall said. "Abbott, Hannah!" A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell down to her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause –

"HUFFLEPUFF." The hat shouted. The girl took the hat off, put it back on the stool, and moved to sit of to the far right.

"Aurion, Lloyd!" Lloyd blinked, and moved forward. McGonagall blinked at the boy once as he flashed a wide smile, and grabbed the top of the hat. Before he could even put it on his head, or lift it more than a foot off the stool, it trembled.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the sorting hat shouted, which resulted in Lloyd dropping said hat, and moving to the wildly cheering, far left table to sit near the twins. Two dozen names later, and Harry's name was called. The great hall went abruptly silent, with murmurs reaching the black haired pre-teen on the stage of students, about if Harry was The Potter.

"_Hmmm... Difficult." _A small voice said in his ear as the hat dropped over his eyes. "_Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. A nice mind. There's talent, oh my goodness yes, some that is being tapped, expanded on, some still latent. Those people you live with know what they're doing, strangers though they are... hmm... Ah, where to put you..."_ Harry remembered the boy Malfoy, and the Slytherin table looked full of sorts he'd rather not meet. _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin. "Are you sure? You could go far in Slytherin.. Well, if you're sure, it better be _GRYFFINDOR!" the hat roared that out loud. Harry joined the table with Lloyd and the Weasleys a little shakily, almost unaware that he had received the loudest cheer yet, and that Lloyd was partially the cause of that. Ron joined them shortly, and then the last boy was called to Slytherin. Albus Dumbledore stood and gave a short welcome speech, which was to say, the silver-haired old man said two sentences, then four random words before sitting again.

"He's mad." Lloyd says, although the preteen looked thrilled with the ghost next to them. "Not as mad as Yggdrasill, but mad all the same." Food appeared before the Weasleys or Harry could question this person Lloyd mentioned, and Harry, who had been eating fairly well for the last four years, was astounded by the sheer variety on one table. Lloyd seemed thrilled as well, although he picked much smaller portions of everything than Harry did.

"That does look good." The ghost in the ruff said, eyeing the students as they shoved their faces.

"Can't you-?"

"I haven't eaten for nearly four hundred years." The ghost said mournfully. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it." Lloyd flinched, and slowed in his eating, looking a bit... down, if not exactly mournful. "Sorry, I didn't mean to put you off your dinner."

"It's not that. I'm just not very hungry." Lloyd says brightly, finishing off his plate before watching and listening to everything he could.

"I didn't introduce myself, did I?" the ghost asked rhetorically. "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident Ghost of Gryffindor Tower."

"I know who you are!" Ron blurted. "You're Nearly Headless Nick! My brothers told me about you."

"I would _prefer_ you call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-" the ghost began stiffly.

"_Nearly_ headless?" Seamus Finnigan, a sandy haired boy who had stood near Harry in line, asked. "How can you be _nearly_ headless?"

"Plenty of ways." Lloyd shrugged. "Someone probably didn't do the job properly, with a blunt weapon, or they weren't strong enough to completely wrench his head off." As the people near the brunette stared at him, Lloyd blinked. "... What? I read a lot of war books, fiction and non. Did you know that someone can live for several days with their intestines spilled out, chained to a cliff face?" Some of the Gryffindors turned a little green. "Supposedly, you'd die from either starvation or exposure, because the big predators of the sea can't get to you. Only gulls and crabs and that like." Nick stared at him.

".. No wonder you weren't feeling off your food by the conversation. You're bloodthirsty, aren't you?" Nick says, eyeing Lloyd.

"Only when I need to be." Lloyd says with a cheery grin. "By the way, Ron, you going to eat that?" the red-head shook his head, looking green yet, and Lloyd took the remainder of the other boys steak.

"He was right, you know." Nick grabbed his left ear, and his head flopped onto his shoulder, held there by a sliver of skin. Lloyd leaned over to look, fork with steak in his mouth, while the others looked stunned. Nick flipped his head back up properly, coughed as Lloyd returned to his steak, and said "So, new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the house championship this year? Gryffindor has gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the cup six years in a row! The blood baron's becoming almost unbearable – he's the Slytherin ghost." Harry and Lloyd twist to look over at the table of green and silver, spotting terrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. The platinum blond, Malfoy, didn't seem that pleased to be sitting next to them, and his nose looked a little crooked yet.

"How'd he get covered in blood?" Seamus asks with great interest.

"Why'd the blood stick around? Yours didn't." Lloyd asks. "I mean, there's a main artery in the neck, you should be stained too." Some of the other Gryffindors look a little oddly at the brunette. "Fine, fine. I'll shut up." He may have fallen silent, but he still glanced about, listening and watching with warm brown eyes that held faint hits of red.

"I've never asked." Nick says. "And never really thought of it." Regular food vanished, and was replaced with deserts. Harry helped himself with a tart; as Lloyd took small bits of everything he could, to best try everything in reach. The talk turned to family.

"I'm half and half." Seamus said. "Dad's a muggle, mom didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they married. Bit of a nasty shock for him." Some of the others laughed, and Neville recounted how he found he had magic.

"What about you, Lloyd?" Some of the Weasleys in earshot blinked, turning to the brunette as he paused in eating a bite of ice-cream. They knew, Harry knew, but what would Lloyd say? Lloyd chewed thoughtfully.

"Dad's a mage." He didn't say wizard, something some of the others noticed. "He uses.. Slightly different magic, and doesn't like the robes. Dresses, he thinks them." Lloyd clarifies. "But, he's a bit specialized. Mom, mom was almost normal. She had a little bit, I think. She was a little startled when he finally told her, but they got married after that, so she was fine with it." Lloyd's expression was a little down, and Harry realized that this was the first time he had talked of the absent woman. His right hand moved to cover his left, squeezing a little. "She died when I was three." His eyes were on his plate as he said this, away from the others. "Some sort of accident."

"Ah..."

"Sorry." Percy and Hermione were talking about classes, as people began to slow due to food. Harry was looking over the high table again. There was the large man who had shown them to the boats, drinking deeply. The woman, McGonagall, was talking to Dumbledore. A young man, in a turban, was talking with a man who had greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. Harry noticed Lloyd's attention wandering to the table as the hooked nosed man looked straight at Harry, and pain flickered in his scar.

"Ouch." Harry puts his hand to the scar. Both Lloyd and Percy turn to him, the brunette worried.

"What is it?" Percy asks, while Lloyd simply watches, his brown eyes flicking over Harry's hand, expression, almost like he was searching for something. Whatever the boy was looking for, he didn't find, and seemed relieved.

"N...nothing." that made Lloyd frown a second, but he hid it as Harry dropped his hand. "Who are those two teachers?"

"That's Professor Quirrell, the one with the turban. No wonder he looks so nervous, that's Professor Snape he's talking to. Snape teaches potions, but everyone knows what he wants to teach is Defense Against the Dark Arts, Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape does." Lloyd shrugs.

"Looks vaguely unpleasant looking." Lloyd says, turning back to the deserts. "Now, what is this.." before he could snag it, the deserts all vanished, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet once again. When the elderly man mentioned a forest being out of bounds, Harry wasn't quite sure he liked the light that sparked in Lloyd's eyes. He really didn't like the look in his brother's eyes when the old man mentioned an area being off limits on pain of painful death. There was a song, sang by students in different styles, tempos, and tunes, before they were dismissed. Following the eldest Weasley in attendance, they were showered with walking sticks by a ghost named Peeves, whom Lloyd watched in annoyance as Percy threatened him off, before he grinned widely. The moving pictures shortly got the brunette's attention, and he watched them all curiously before they reached one of a plump woman in a pink dress.

"Password?" she asked, peering at the lot of them.

"Caput Draconis." Lloyd blinked, looking at the woman as her portrait swung out. Percy directed them inside, and then up one staircase for girls, another for boys. Lloyd was pleased to find at the top, his bags were at the foot of a bed as well, much to the surprise of the others, who had full sized trunks. Lloyd seemed even more pleased about the colors – red. He flopped onto the bed that had been claimed by his belongings, more awake than the other preteens as they all changed and went to bed. Harry noted that after watching them quietly, his brother had closed the curtains about his bed before changing.

* * *

When he woke sweating, Lloyd was next to his bed, hand outstretched to shake his shoulder. For such a loud boy, Lloyd could talk quietly when he wanted too.

"Alright, Harry? A nightmare?" without his glasses, Harry almost thought the brunette looked the age he should have been, rather than 11. Harry nodded, rubbing his eyes, and then wiping his hands on the blankets to clear sweat. Lloyd offered him some scrap of cloth that seemed dark in the night, and he wiped his face with that. "you going to be okay?" Lloyd asks, apparently having noted his shaking. Harry nods, and passes Lloyd the cloth back.

"Sorry if I woke you." Harry whispered back. Lloyd smiled, but it wasn't one of his blinding, full blown ones.

"I just take a while to go to sleep. Sleep well." Lloyd heads back to his curtained off bed.

* * *

Despite the fact that the brunette was secretly into his twenties, Harry discovered that Lloyd wasn't much help in classes. He constantly got talked to by teachers for his view on things – "Mr. Aurion, stop moving both your arms. It's only the wand hand that goes through the motions." "I'm learning it with both. Just in case my main hand breaks, or gets tired. I'm Ambi, I use both." "stop talking back, Mr. Aurion." – had had at least one detention a week for his blunt, borderline rude way of speaking what was on his mind. Fortunately, although the plants were something new to him, Harry's brother had a natural green thumb with the Herbology class, and Stars were also something anyone could ask him on, and get a quick, detailed answer. He also fell asleep in history of magic, but had managed to charm his way into getting to read Hermione's notes for the class within the first week. Harry was slightly relieved to find that he wasn't incredibly far behind his magically aged brother, whom he thought would be years ahead of him due to the fact of his strange family. In fact, it seemed Lloyd couldn't get very much _right_. When told to counter a spell with one they'd been practicing for a week, Lloyd had fallen into a defensive crouch with a word. "Guardian!" had sent a glowing green bubble about the brunette preteen, one that split and deflected the spell about him, sending its weakened parts to fly behind him, before Lloyd had lunged and pressed his wand to the underside of the teacher's jaw. Lloyd had been told that this was an interesting way to do it, but not what was asked, and Lloyd had said that it was more effective, because he had noticed most of them didn't move very fast, and getting close was going to get him in their armor, his words. Quirrell hadn't been best pleased with this, but let it go.

* * *

Friday morning had the post come in again, with Hedwig dropping two for him, and Aeros dropping two for the brunette. One was the same sort as Harry's two, and the other looked a bit different. Lloyd fed the large owl while reading the paper from his father, while Harry marveled at the almost print like script of Yuan and Kratos. They both said basically the same things; that they hadn't sent a letter before this because they weren't quite used to sending letters to anyone other than each other, and Aurian had been of no help since the elf wasn't one to write. They would send regular letters on Fridays, and it would be likely to be from one of the males rather than both. Harry looked at Lloyd's letter, and was surprised to find it in an entirely different language, although the hand looked almost the same as Kratos's letter. The brunette was dragging a finger under the lines, mouthing what apparently were words as he translated the letter in his head with some apparent difficulty. The other, was incredibly untidy.

"who's that from?" Harry asked, looking at the untidy writing that asked if Lloyd wanted to head to tea with 'Hagrid' that afternoon, after classes were over.

"Hagrid. He's the big guy who led us to the boats. He lives in a small house by that forbidden forest. He's nice. And I like tea." Lloyd says around eating. Looking sneaky, he pulled out a regular, Muggle 'ball point' pen, and scrawled his answer with his free hand, before sending Aeros back. "We'll all come." They had to go to 'double potions' with the Slytherins, which was taught by the greasy haired teacher that Harry was sure didn't like him. Of course, getting to the class, he was fairly sure that Snape hated him. The Malfoy boy was there as well, with his twin lackeys of Crabbe and Goyle, and when Lloyd smiled cheerfully and waved at the trio, they stopped their snickering. It seemed that they remembered the brunette. Snape read the roll call, and cracked a jab at Harry's name. When the Slytherin trio snickered, Lloyd, who was looking straight at the teacher, yawned, and slouched in his seat. Snape gave a speech, and then suddenly turned to Harry.

"Potter!" Snape said. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Harry blinked, his mind racing, and he barely caught Lloyd's whisper. He repeated it for the class.

"A very good narcotic." He hoped he pronounced the word right, wasn't one he had been completely sure of.

"Sleeping potion, Potter, not a simple Muggle drug. It's powerful enough to be known as the Draught of Living Death. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" Snape asked. Lloyd's whisper reached him again.

"Gut of a goat." Snape wasn't looking very pleased at this point.

"Stomach. And it will save you from most poisons. What is the difference, Potter, between Monkshood and Wolf's bane?"

".. there is one?" Harry once again repeated what Lloyd had said.

"there isn't. it's the same plant, also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you taking notes?" there was a scrabble for quills and parchment, where Snape looked vaguely annoyed. The class ended with Neville making a casualty of Seamus's cauldron, although the boy had managed to only get a little splashed due to the fact Lloyd had nearly stepped in it to move the nervous boy out of the way. Lloyd had been spared due to the fact he continued to wear gloves and a jacket under his robes. Snape had snapped at them for this, and rounded on Lloyd and Harry after sending Neville to the hospital wing, taking a point from them each. Lloyd almost lost a second one for himself by looking bored with the scolding.

"Cheer up." Lloyd and Ron were of the same mind. "If it's even something you can fix, some people just dislike others. If it's nothing you can fix, then just ignore it. You can't fix it, so it's simple discrimination, and has no point other than to make him feel good about himself." Lloyd said that all so fervently that Ron blinked at him, before checking the time.

"Hey, shouldn't we be heading out to Hagrid's? You did say you wanted to bring us." Lloyd's face brightened. They left the castle, heading their way across the grounds to a small wooden house, Lloyd enthusiastically leading the way. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door. Lloyd thumped it, and a frantic scrambling and booming barks came from inside.

"Back, Fang- Back!" a man's voice boomed.

"he's got a big dog." Lloyd says. "they may look scary, but they're really nice. Not like Dad-scary-nice."

"Hang on." A large face, with a thick beard and small dark eyes appeared in the door as the large man inside opened it a tiny bit. "Back, Fang." He let them in struggling to keep a hold on a large black boarhound's collar. It was a one-room affair, with some birds and hams hanging from the ceiling, a kettle boiling over the fire, and a massive bed with patchwork quilt in the other corner. Lloyd started distracting Fang, getting dog slobber over his arms. "Make yeselves at home." Hagrid lets go of Fang's collar.

"Hey, Hagrid. This is my brother Harry, and Ron." Lloyd said, surfacing from under the large dog. Hagrid nodded, before he blinked at Harry.

"but yer Harry Potter! Lloyd, yer Aurion." Lloyd grins at the startled, large man.

"Aurian, my step mom, brought him home a few years back. He doesn't live with the mundane humans anymore. So, he's my brother." Lloyd says it like there couldn't be anything else to say about it.

"And a Weasley?" Hagrid leaves it at that, something about the cheery brunette telling him not to push it. "I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers away from the forest." The rock cakes Hagrid sets out were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost were _rocks_, but all three pretended, or at least Harry and Ron pretended, to like them as they shared their view on the week's classes. Fang rested his head on Lloyd's knee, where he got scratches, and proceeded to drool. The three were delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch 'that old git', on the account that the man's small cat, Mrs. Norris, stalked him whenever he went into the castle. When the subject went to Snape's class, Hagrid was on Ron's side – the man just didn't like many students. He swapped the subject to Ron's older brother Charlie then, and Ron was happy to tell him about Charlie's work with Dragons. Harry spotted a paper cutting, about a break in that had happened on his birthday, at the bank belonging to the goblins.

"Hey, look at this." Harry passed it over to Lloyd, who read it quickly, then passed it to Ron. "After we went."

"I remember reading about this." Ron said.

* * *

So. People who know Lloyd. There's a reason for his iffy-smarts. think about it for a moment. he gets iffy smarts now.

I think Lloydy'd know that type of stuff by now.

ermm.. again, reveiw if you've got questions or what not.


	9. B1: Flight

Flying lessons were something Harry was thrilled about, and Lloyd wasn't so much. Although he was mildly interested about the Quidditch sport, he wasn't too keen on the idea of flying with a broom. But when Harry pressed, Lloyd fell silent, a withdrawn sort of silence that worried the other boys, and didn't match up well with Lloyd himself. Although, once he heard that they'd be having this class with the Slytherins, he did brighten for a moment, although Harry didn't, his mood plummeting. While Lloyd delighted in the sheer possibility that he might be able to get in a fight with the platinum blond Malfoy, Harry simply didn't want to deal with the boy. The blond simply wouldn't shut up about things he'd done, not that some Gryffindors were any better. Harry noticed that Lloyd was starting to look annoyed with all this, but every time he took a breath like he was about to tell them something that would be better than their stories, his expression twisted, and he remained silent. Harry wondered if his brother was thinking of telling them that he was really 26, but noticed he was caught up in the glance as well. Hermione was worried, and kept telling them all tips she had gotten out of a book. Neville was hanging on to her every word, but most of the other Gryffindors were pleased when post shut her up. Lloyd's father and uncle had done exactly as they had said, sending a letter on Fridays, although they did mention that if Harry wanted something, he needed to ask and they would work on it, while Lloyd got them even less, usually only after he had gotten into a particularly fine bit of trouble. Neville got a package from a barn owl, his grandmother, and it turned out to be a large marble filled with white smoke. A 'remembrall' he called it, and when it turned crimson like it did when he held it, which meant he forgot something.

"Maybe you forgot to change your underwear?" Lloyd offers, grinning, but Malfoy had snagged the ball, Lloyd's hand flashing out to grasp his wrist shortly after the boy grabbed it. Harry and Ron jump to their feet as Malfoy freezes, Lloyd standing slower. But before one of them, or the bully boys, could make a move to escalate this into a fight, Professor McGonagall was there.

"What's going on?"

"I caught a thief." Lloyd says calmly, but his eyes weren't as cheery as his voice.

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, professor." Neville says, eyes wide on Lloyd's gloved hand next to his head. Malfoy scowled, and then released the ball. Lloyd's other hand snags it before it can hit the table.

"Just looking. Let me go." Lloyd waits a moment, and then does so when McGonagall coughs. Malfoy and his lackeys walk off, and the trio sits again. Lloyd has a slight frown on his face yet, but he passes the now white-clouded ball back to Neville, and it promptly goes crimson again.

* * *

The flying lessons started at three thirty, and the Gryffindors headed outside to see the gathering of first year Slytherins, and a score or so of broomsticks laid out in the grass. Their teacher was Madam Hooch, who had short grey hair and eyes like a hawk in color.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" she barked, something that had Lloyd immediately straitening with an attentive look on his face, although he seemed just as startled by his reaction as Harry had. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Harry saw that the one he picked was old, and had twigs going out in odd places from the bunch at the end, but that none were much better. "Stick your right hand over the broom." Madam Hooch said from before them. "And say, Up!"

"Up!" Everyone shouted, at varying levels of confidence, and pitches. Neville clearly didn't want to leave the ground. They all got varying levels of success with their brooms as well. Harry's shot straight into his hand, Lloyd's jumped past his hand and two or three of those on his other side had their brooms lurching for the brunette as well. Hermione's had rolled over, and Ron's had jumped a foot up. Hooch frowned at Lloyd, who caught his broom on its way back down.

"You put too much will into that. Everyone else, try again." Lloyd grinned a little sheepishly at his neighbors, but remained silent. Once everyone had broom in hand by commanding it, Madam Hooch showed them how to mount the things without sliding off the end, and then walked down the rows correcting their grips. The three Gryffindor boys were delighted when Hooch told Malfoy that he'd been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard." Madam Hooch said once they were all mounted. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three – two – "Neville, jumpy and nervous, frightened by the idea of being left on the ground, launched before the whistle reached her lips. "Come back, boy!" She shouted, but Neville kept climbing, 12 feet – 20 feet. Harry saw his scared, deathly pale face look down, saw him gasp before Lloyd moved, his brown eyes intent, slip sideways off the broom and

_Wham_ – a thud as he hit Lloyd, who had darted just under the boy at the last moment, and a second thud as both fell backwards. Neville's broom lazily drifted up, and up, before over the Forbidden Forest and out of sight. Madam Hooch hurried over to the two boys, and moved groaning Neville from eerily silent Lloyd, her face as white as Neville's.

"Wow... angel...s..." Lloyd sounded a bit sleepy as the teacher shifted him into a sit, blinking a few times. "... I think I hit my head." He told her rather clearly, a grin on his face. "By the way, how's Neville?"

"You're concussed, you silly boy. He's fine. How are your ribs?" Madam Hooch prodded him in the side, and Lloyd giggled, hiding a twist in his expression from pain.

"Fine." He started to get up, wobbling a bit, and Madam Hooch attempted to push him back into sitting. "I've had worse." Lloyd manages to stay standing despite the teachers attempts. "Really, I'm fine." Lloyd protests, as the teacher wraps an arm about his shoulders, pulling up Neville as well, steering them for the school, but Harry could see how unfocused he looked. She turned to the rest of the class.

"None of you is to move while I take these two to the hospital wing! You leave those broomsticks where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say Quidditch. Come along." Harry was a little amused to hear Lloyd mutter Quidditch, but his amusement faded when he saw his brother have a little trouble finding the stairs.

* * *

Harry had to tell Lloyd about the class, before Ron or one of the other Gryffindors could tell the brunette about it with over exaggeration. Lloyd looked thrilled, and he told them how the head nurse, someone called Madam Pomfrey, had gotten annoyed when Madam Hooch took them to the hospital wing and he hadn't had much more than a small knot on his head and bruised ribs. The Weasley twins were as thrilled as Lloyd was, for other reasons – Harry hadn't told the other two boys about making the Quidditch team until the Twins had, as they were part of the team, and Wood had told the black haired boy not to tell anyone. Ron looked a little bit put out, but Lloyd grinned, not looking annoyed in the slightest.

"As long as you only keep secrets that aren't harmful, and by harmful I mean you knowing something dangerous is about, or someone's sick or hurt, I won't care." Lloyd says, before food distracted him.(1) The Weasley twins left, only to be replaced by a trio far less welcome; Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Enjoying your last meal, Potter? When are you getting shipped back to your miserable wreck of a family?"

"I won't argue that we're in pretty bad shape." Lloyd says, before indicating Malfoy with his fork. "But my dad at least knows how to teach respect and manners. And make the lessons stick." Malfoy blinked – apparently, he hadn't known that Lloyd's family was the one who had adopted the Wizarding Savior.

"You're a lot braver now that you're back on the ground and you've got your little friends with you." Harry said coolly, feeling support from Lloyd. Of course, there wasn't anything little about Crabbe or Goyle, but as the high table was full of teachers, and he had seen Lloyd take the three of them on in much less space, neither of them could, or wanted, to do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

"I'd take you on anytime on my own." Malfoy says, ignoring Lloyd and his own lackeys. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's Duel. Wands only," And here Lloyd looked noticeably disappointed, before he gets a sly look. "No contact. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizards duel?"

"Of course he has." Ron says, and Lloyd follows up on it before the redhead could say more.

"I'll be his second." Lloyd says, leaning forward. "So, are there going to be enchantments protecting the surroundings? Wouldn't want anything to leave marks about, would we?"

"I'll be a witness." Ron says, frowning as Lloyd took his choice of position. "To make sure you don't do something underhanded." Malfoy turned to look at his lackeys, sizing them up.

"Crabbe." He said, naming his own second. "Midnight tonight all right? We'll meet you in the trophy room, that's always unlocked." The three boys nodded, and the Slytherin trio left. Ron and Harry looked at Lloyd.

"I'm guessing that a wizard duel is like a sword one?" Harry asks, and Lloyd grins. "and what's a second?"

"Just.. a lot flashier looking, sword duels look a lot like fancy, deadly dances. Spells are a lot flashier than swords, although I prefer them, and a second takes over if the person who issued the challenge is incapacitated or killed. I'll step in before any death happens, but.." the brunette shrugged.

"Both you and Malfoy don't know enough magic to do any real damage." Ron said, but he didn't include Lloyd in that comment, something the brunette noticed with a savage grin.

"And what do I do if I wave my wand and nothing happens?"

"Pocket it and sock him one in the jaw, knee him groin, then hit him hard in the kidneys." Lloyd says, reaching over to tap the spot on Harry's back. "That'll distract him, make it hard to move, and he might just drop his wand with the groin blow, and then dump him on the floor. You can take his wand if he didn't drop it."

"Excuse me." The three of them look up, and Hermione is there.

"Can't a person eat in peace in this place?" Ron asks, only to be ignored.

"I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying –"

"Bet you could." Ron mutters to his meal.

"- and you _mustn't_ go wandering about the school at night, think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you."

"and it's really none of your business." Harry says.

"trust me, we're not going to get caught." Lloyd says with a confident grin.

"goodbye."

* * *

(1) Four Words - Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium. *nod* Symphonians, you know what i'm talking about.

remember, questions you have, reveiw/pm me :D


	10. B1: Fight

Lloyd stayed in the common room, working late on homework by fire light while the other two, who didn't have such a reason to be up, lay awake listening to the other three boys in their dorm falling asleep. Ron had been full of advice on the magic aspect, saying that Harry should dodge rather than try to block. Lloyd'd been quiet, working on several homework assignments he had left off until the day before. When Ron had turned on him for this, Lloyd had said that 'if I fill his head with help now, he's more likely to get confused. I'll help when we get there and duel.' There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, although Lloyd was fairly certain they wouldn't be.

"half past eleven." Ron whispers, rolling over to look at Harry across the darkness. "Time to go." Both boys pulled on bathrobes, pocketed wands, and crept down to the common room. Lloyd wasn't anywhere in sight, but his homework was still there. They looked at each other, and shrugged, heading for the portrait hole, when the chair nearest them spoke.

"I _can't_ believe you're doing this, Harry." Hermione, with a pink bathrobe and a frown on her face, a lamp in hand.

"You." Ron hisses. "go back to bed!"

"I almost told your brother." Hermione snapped back. "Percy, he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this." Harry frowned, and Lloyd returned then.

"But you didn't." Lloyd says, startling the three – he'd changed into a long dark shirt and gloves, and had shed his robe. An ash-black belt was across his torso, something held behind him, wrapped in his robes. He had blended in with the surrounding darkness, his clothes a dark grey rather than black. "Which means you want to come along, hm? You didn't tattle because you wanted something." Hermione gaped at the brunette, who didn't quite look so cheery without his carefree grin and bright red garments under the 'dress' he protested about.

"Come on. We've got to get there..." Harry says, heading for the portrait hole. Ron moves with them, and with a quick grin, so does Lloyd. Hermione recovered before they got out, hissing after them like an angry goose.

"Don't you _care_ about Gryffindor; do you _only_ care about yourselves? _I_ don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about switching spells."

"If you're going to come with us, stop talking. You'll be caught too if you continue." Lloyd says with a grin, while Ron hisses back "Go away." They were outside the portrait now, and Lloyd was struggling to flatten his hair.

"All right, but I'm warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so –" whatever she was going to tell them that they were, was cut off as she turned around. She was facing an empty painting. The fat lady was gone, and she had no hope of getting back in without her there. "Now what am I going to do?" she asks shrilly, but Lloyd moved and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Not so loud. Do _you_ want to get caught? Things like that echo." Lloyd hisses. "Keep your voice low, pitch _and_ volume."

"That's your problem." Ron says. "We've got to go; we're going to be late." Lloyd released Hermione, and moved back to the other two. They hadn't made it down the corridor when Hermione rejoined them.

"I'm coming with you." Hermione had listened to what Lloyd had said, and although she couldn't do much in the way of pitch, her volume was indeed low.

"You are _not_."

"D'you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all four of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you –"

"Do you really think he'd believe that?" Lloyd asks, very casually. "We're Gryffindors, the brave and loyal lot. Its Slytherins job to sell out class mates, isn't it? And from my own run-ins with him, he just doesn't like us kids. He'd get you as well as us." This shut Hermione up, and Ron's retort. But Hermione brought something else up.

".. Is that a sword?!" she asks of Lloyd, indicating the wrapped bundle on his back. Ron looked startled, and Harry noticed Lloyd was abruptly grinning. One of those grins that made you question his sanity and wonder why he was so pleased with himself.

"Yes. Yes it is." He says smugly, reaching back to pat the long part that reached above his head, the hilt the boys guessed. "And before you ask, I can use it too. It's wrapped in my robe." (1)

"How did you get that into Hogwarts?" Hermione asks, looking startled.

"Hidden. On me. I've got more. For variety's sake." Harry, Ron and Hermione stop walking, and Lloyd notices only after he took another few steps. "Sylph, I said that out loud?" Lloyd rubbed the back of his head, turning to face them with a bashful grin. "They're well hidden, don't worry."

"And he's stable enough not to whip them out in the middle of class." Harry says after his moment of shock. "So don't worry. He didn't even use them on Malfoy or his goons the first time they fought."

"They weren't worth it." Lloyd says, before he starts walking again. "And they still aren't, but there're some spells I can cast through a blade, but not a wand. And this guy," Lloyd pats the hilt behind his head once again," is the only single blade I have. All the others are supposed to be sets, or I'm not used to using them alone. I can tell them my wand's in here." That last was said a little evilly.

"You act like it's named." Hermione snorts, keeping in their shadows as they continue moving through corridors. " Like it's a person too, or something."

"It is, and so are the other ones. They're named as the type of blade they are. Shiden, Saint's Rapier, Material Blades, Angel's Tear..." Lloyd says quietly, his brown eyes alert. "This is The Eternal Sword." The other three could hear the capitals. They reached the trophy room, and neither Malfoy nor Crabbe was there. Harry kept his wand out, incase Malfoy approached suddenly and started at once, while Lloyd looked over the trophy case. Cups, shields, plates, statues winked at them in the darkness.

"He's late." Ron whispered after several minutes had slowly gone by. "maybe he chickened out."

"shh!" Lloyd said, eyes wild, before a noise in one of the adjacent rooms made the others jump, Harry raising his wand when they heard someone speak. And it wasn't one of the boys they were waiting for.

"Sniff around, my sweet. They might be lurking in a corner." Filch, and My Sweet could only have been Mrs. Norris. Horrified, Lloyd moved to the opposite door while Harry motioned them quickly out of it and down the hall. Lloyd eased the door shut before they heard Filch get into the Trophy room. "They're in here somewhere." They heard him mutter. "Probably hiding."

"This way." Harry mouthed to the others, and they all took off down the corridor. Lloyd was by far the fastest, and when he noticed how far he had pulled ahead, he ran back to them, and grabbed the person in last. Hermione shrieked when Lloyd picked her up, the noise causing Ron to jerk into a suit of armor. Lloyd didn't put her down however, which left Harry to help Ron free.

"Run!" Lloyd sounded like his adult-self when he barked that, still holding Hermione about the waist as he takes his own advice and bolts. They headed down a hidden passageway, and ended up near the Charms classroom. Lloyd set Hermione down then, the witch looking a little pale in the moonlight.

"think we lost him." Harry panted, leaning against the wall as Lloyd put his hands on his knees and took in air, the sword still on his back. The hilt had freed itself, however, and it was golden, with white for where hands would go. The guard was curved back toward the hilt, and there were two, one of the thick golden brown bars was hidden, but the point where the first connected was visible.

" I –_told_ – you." Hermione hissed, the least out of breath, although Lloyd straitened shortly. "I – told – you."

"we didn't get actually caught." Lloyd says, looking about.

"we've got to get back to Gryffindor tower." Ron says. "Quickly as possible."

"Malfoy tricked you." Hermione said to Harry. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you – Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room. Malfoy must have tipped him off." Harry privately agreed, but telling the bossy girl this wasn't going to help.

"Let's go." The knob on a door near them rattled as soon as they started walking, and something came shooting out of the classroom before them. Lloyd's robe flared in front of Harry, Ron and Hermione, the blade in his hands. But it was only the poltergeist, Peeves. He saw them, and giggled shrilly. Lloyd held a massive double edged sword, which was violet, with a white edge and curious red spots less than a hand from the strange hilt, which had the blade on it as well, the second bar curving far less than the first, but the blade was affixed to that. Lloyd held it in both hands, crouched partially so that it was still angled up, but also closer to the floor. He glared at the ghost.

"Shut up, Peeves – please – you'll get us thrown out."

Peeves cackled again. "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, Naughty, you'll be caughty."

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."

"Should tell Filch, I should." Said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Not if I slice you in half." Lloyd growls, taking a step forward and shifting his blade up and over his shoulder.

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellows, floating up and away from Lloyd and his blade. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!" Lloyd snarls, and takes a swing at the ghost anyway, missing, and snagged his robe, before running with the other three straight into a door. It was locked. Harry pounded on it while Lloyd wrapped his blade again.

"This is it!" Ron moaned as they worked at the door. "We're done for! This is the end!"

"I'd break it down, but that'd be a dead giveaway." Lloyd mutters. They could hear footsteps.

"Move over." Hermione grabbed Harry's hand and thus his wand, and tapped the lock. "_Alohamora_!" she hisses. The lock clicked, Lloyd grinned his appreciation, and they all moved in, and pressed against the door, listening.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch demanded. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please'." Lloyd quietly finished wrapping his blade in his robe again, affixing it to his belt.

"Don't mess with me, peeves, now _where did they go?_"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please." Peeves said in an annoying singsong.

"All right – _please_."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa!" Lloyd turned away from the door. "told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaa!" they heard Peeves whooshing away, Filch cursing, and Lloyd cursing under his breath, although the words they used were far different.

"He thinks the doors locked." Harry whispers.

"Don't move." Lloyd says, slowly, softly. "Actually, move. Slowly, very slowly, turn around. Don't scream, don't shout, don't panic, just slowly turn around." His voice was low, and steady. They weren't in a room after all, but rather a corridor. On the third floor. That forbidden one. And now they saw why. Fortunately, they managed to keep their surprise at a sharp inhale, as Lloyd stared down one head of a large, three headed dog. It was monstrous, taking up all the space from floor to ceiling, all six eyes fixed on them, and one pair fixed firmly on Lloyd. And it was growling. "One of you, slowly, slowly, without looking away, get that door open." Lloyd continued talking, his voice still very low, very slow. "Let's get out of here before it thinks us a snack." Harry did so, his hand groping across the door for the handle, and then opening it. "Move!" Lloyd roars, taking a step forward and startling the large beast, before leaping backwards out of it, on the heels of the others. He slammed the door shut before catching up with them, racing along without heed of Filch to the seventh floor.

"Where on earth have you all been?" the fat lady asked as they finally stopped running. Lloyd grinned at her.

"I was showing them how to defend themselves hand to hand." Lloyd said cheerily, if a little breathless.

"Pig snout, pig snout." Harry pants and the fat lady's painting moved for them. They scrambled in, and collapsed in armchairs. Lloyd dropped himself before the fire. It was a while before any of them said anything.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" Ron asks finally. "If any dog needs exercise, it's that one." Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back.

"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?" Lloyd sat up, and watched her quietly.

"The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet; I was too busy with its heads."

"A trapdoor." Lloyd says, taking off his sword, belt, and then gloves. "It was standing on a trapdoor, one of the kinds for cellars, or something of that sort, rather than a pitfall." He still had his strange bracelet of the teardrop shaped brown-gold metal under an indigo gem on his left hand. He shucked his jacket too, then his boots. "A guard, either for keeping something down, or people out." He wasn't smiling now, as he twisted in place, stretching. Hermione stood up, glaring at the calm way Lloyd told them this.

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed, or worse, expelled." Lloyd snorted at this, amused, and she huffed. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

"We don't mind." Ron said, staring after her. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you."

"Her priorities need a little help." Lloyd says standing and gathering his clothing. The sword was gone as he moved to the table with his homework, but he had a ring on one thumb. "Well, I'm done for the night. See ya at breakfast. You might want to write dad about your new sport. Might want to ask McGonagall about it first, just to make sure it's safe to get delivered, but..." Lloyd waved at them, and vanished up the stairs.

".. your brother wears jewelry." Ron points out in a sort of abstract way.

"Never seen him bare handed without it." Harry says, but his mind was racing. It was still racing when he finally drifted to sleep, with the idea to talk to Hagrid. He had mentioned that Hogwarts was the next safest place to hide anything, next to Gringotts. Gringotts had been broken into. Something guarded here. An empty vault.

* * *

(1) Do you really think Lloyd'd go anywhere without swords? Even if they live in 'civilized' times?

I don't particularly beleive so :D


	11. B1: Troll

Now for something fun....

* * *

Malfoy looked suitably shocked when he saw the three boys at breakfast the next day, Harry and Ron looking a little tired, but all three cheery. Both boys thought it as much of an adventure as Lloyd, and Harry told them both about what he had worked out early that morning.

"It's either really valuable, or really dangerous." Ron said.

"Both." Was Lloyd's bet. Hermione wanted nothing to do with the three of them, and only Lloyd seemed a little put out by this, since he had managed to get History notes out of her and apparently the deal was over now. They were also a little more preoccupied with getting back at Malfoy. Harry had written to Kratos about the sport he was now playing in, and the next day Hedwig had returned with the man's neat writing in a request for more details – position, what was the sort of thing needed for the position, if there was a broom that was suggested, whether he'd had this delivery cleared by a teacher because the letter had said that first years weren't to get brooms, and when he needed by.

Harry went and got the confirmation that such a parcel was allowed, and even got a note from McGonagall, and the promise that he wouldn't open it at breakfast was the key for this note. So, it arrived next week like McGonagall had said would be best, carried by Hedwig, Aeros, and another two owls. Harry remembered his instructions, and only opened the letter attached to what had to be the handle.

The shop keeper said that this was one of the newer, and better brooms. Having no experience in this matter, I went with his word. He called it a 'Nimbus 2000'. Why they named a broom after a sort of cloud is beyond me. -K

There was also a foot note.

Ignore him. He names things after colors. Look at Lloyd. Although, _Gray_ would have been more blatant of a choice. Maybe the color of walls of his home affected his mind. -Y

Followed by another footnote.

Shut up, coffee. -K

And yet another.

I'm writing, not speaking. I can't 'shut up'. -Y

There was an ink smudge after that, like someone had been writing, and had been stopped, messily, from writing. Some of that ink looked brown. Harry passed it, confused, to Lloyd, who nearly laughed.

"They get along that way. Its how they show they care about each other." Lloyd says this like he couldn't imagine how.

"... You punch him." Ron points out. Lloyd grins widely.

"That's because I know he can take it. And look, Dad thinks the same of Yuan." He indicates the stain. "I think he socked him in the jaw. Wonder if we need a new table." Lloyd thought on that. "Naw, Aurian'd make them make a new one. We're still good." The trio left the hall to go open the broom in their room, Harry abruptly remembering that the evening was his first practice. Malfoy waylaid him, and snagged the package.

"That's a broomstick." He threw it back with a look of jealousy and spite. "You'll be in for it this time, Potter, First Years aren't allowed them." Ron couldn't help himself.

"It's not any old broomstick." Ron says. "It's a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you have at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?" Ron grinned at Harry. "Comets look flashy but they're not in the same league as the Nimbus."

"What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn't afford half the handle." Malfoy snapped back. "I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig."

"You _sicken_ me." Lloyd growls, glaring at Malfoy while Ron turns red. "Status, money, blood, you care about anything and _everything_ that doesn't matter! It's no small wonder that the only two people who can stand you don't have a brain cell between them!" Lloyd angrily indicates Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy opens his mouth. "And that too, 'my father' this and _'my father'_ that." Lloyd fumes, his eyes narrowed. "Have you ever, ever, had to protect yourself, those dear to you? Oh, wait. That's limited. Those dear to you don't hold you that way. Maybe that stick shoved up your ass has something to do with it. All those packages you flaunt? They're really bribes from _father dear_ telling you to stay put, makes the house more pleasant. If you want to get some good friends, try taking the stick out before it becomes permanent." Malfoy looked stunned, as pale as his hair. Crabbe and Goyle didn't look like they understood a word of that. "Go ahead and mock me, go ahead and mock my father, my uncle, none of us care what you think. But don't you dare mock my friends, don't you dare mock my brother." Lloyd snarls, before visibly calming himself, crossing his arms and scowling off to a wall. Ron and Harry looked, and felt, startled as well. Flitwick appeared before Malfoy could do more than get his color back.

"Not arguing, I hope, boys?" he squeaked. Lloyd was struggling to master his expression, having managed to get to a blank expression like Kratos wore most of the time, but his eyes were still a bit redder than chocolaty brown.

"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor." Malfoy said that, still warily watching Lloyd. He didn't quite look sure of what to say in retort to what Lloyd had just dumped on him, or what to say of it in front of a professor.

"Yes, yes, that's right." Flitwick said, smiling at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?"

"A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir." Harry said, trying to control his glee at the new look on Malfoy's face. "And it's really thanks to Malfoy here I got it." The three Gryffindors headed upstairs, Lloyd managing a smile at their smothered laughter.

"I've never thought you could blow like that." Ron said, glancing at Lloyd.

"He's just about everything I hate." Lloyd says, sounding grumpy. "Discrimination by blood, birth, and material possessions, with a fat side helping of Ego, and a stick up the ass to make it so he can't see that he's a jerk. That, or he does see, and doesn't care, which just makes him worse."

"Discrimination...?" Harry asks, guessing this was as good a time as any to figure it out. Lloyd sighs.

"Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." Lloyd recites. "What I mean, is the negative side." Both boys give him a confused look. "Let's say..." Lloyd thought, and then grimaced. "There's a bunch of bad people, and they're mean to everyone. Every single one of them has brown hair. Brown haired people aren't that common, except for in these groups of bad people. So, everyone hates and fears brown haired people. I'm not one of the mean brunettes. But, people will still hate and fear me, just because I'm brunette. Never mind the fact I save puppies and kittens from trees, and help old ladies across the street, and am generally nice person, everyone still doesn't like me. _That's_ what I hate. I hate it when people hate or like other people for something they can't change, rather than for who they are. If people hate me for kicking puppies, it makes sense, I kick them. I don't want to have something that I can't change making people fear or hate me. It's stupid. Very, very stupid." Ron still looks a little confused, and Lloyd figured out a way to say it for the wizard-raised boy. "Mundane folk, muggles, fear witches. They know that some witches are evil, and then they assume all of them are. That's why you hide from them, they think all magic of this sort of evil. They don't think about how people are individual, some are more 'good' than others."

"I see. And because they can't change the fact they have magic..."

"They hide it. They hide it, and lie, and fear. And fear breeds hatred, which breeds more hate, and that causes death, and revenge, only to breed more fear and hate. It's a nasty cycle. That's why dad wants you to go to muggle schools as well as this one. If you know more about how they live, you have less to fear, and you'll be able to fit in better."

* * *

When Halloween arrived, Harry was a little startled to know how long he'd been there. Lloyd looked like he didn't really notice how fast time had been blowing by, but the brunette was always up late finishing homework anyway. They were making objects fly in Charms, and Harry was paired with Seamus, Lloyd with Neville, both boys looking happy with this fact, having common ground in disliking Malfoy and love for plants, and Ron was paired with Hermione. Harry and Seamus were having no luck with their feather, Seamus setting it on fire. Lloyd managed to make it jump in the air once or twice, and Ron was yelling and wind milling his arms. Hermione made hers rise four feet above their heads. Ron made an annoyed comment, and Hermione run off, although Lloyd and Harry noted tears. She wasn't at any of the other classes, or all afternoon. Lloyd almost went to go look for her, but heard that she was in the girl's bathroom, which was one of the places he wasn't allowed, and let it go.

During dinner, Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the great hall, turban askew and terrified. He raced across the room, and in front of Dumbledore stopped.

"Troll – in the dungeons –" he gasped. "Thought you ought to know." Before he collapsed in a dead faint. The room erupted in talk, panicked, worried and boastful. Harry notices Lloyd was quiet, noticeably thinking.

"Prefects!" Dumbledore rumbled once he had silenced the hall with firecrackers from his wand. "Lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!" Percy was good with this.

"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!" They joined the mob following the Weasley.

"How could a troll get in? Harry asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid." Ron said. "Maybe Peeves let it in as a Halloween joke." They noticed that Lloyd was walking slower as they worked through a bunch of Hufflepuffs, but he grabbed them both by the sleeve shortly. His face was focused, and not cheerily excited in the least. Something about his brown eyes reminded Harry of Kratos.

"I'm going to find Hermione." Lloyd says firmly. "You two can either come with me, or hide that I'm gone from Percy. I'm going either way." Lloyd turned and joined the Hufflepuffs, leaving Harry and Ron to look at each other.

"All right." Ron said after some visible mental struggle. "But Percy'd better not see us." They caught up with Lloyd in a deserted side corridor. Lloyd greeted them with a grin, but it faded and they continued going. They had just turned the corner into the corridor where the girl's bathroom was when Lloyd froze, and tugged them for a large stone griffin.

"Percy!" Ron hissed a second later, hearing the footsteps. But it wasn't Percy they saw, but Snape. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.

"What's he doing?" Harry whispers, as Lloyd holds them put for a little longer. "Why isn't he down in the dungeons with the rest of the teachers?"

"Search me."

"Not interested now, maybe later. " Lloyd mutters, turning to look down the hall, releasing the other two boy's robes. They went to look at the corridor Snape had taken. "Almost there...."

"He's heading for the third floor." Harry said, but turned when he heard Lloyd cough, sneeze, and almost gag. The brunette was holding his nose, eyes wide. Harry sniffed, and it hit him too, before the three froze, hearing something. A low grunting, shuffling footfalls of huge feet. Ron pointed – at the end of the passage to the left, something huge was moving toward them. They moved into the shadows, Lloyd staring at it like he had the three headed dog, as it came into a patch of moonlight. It was ugly, twelve feet tall, dull granite gray skin, lumpy grey like a boulder with a small head like a coconut. Short thick legs it had, with flat horny feet. It held a large wooden club, which it dragged behind it because its legs were too short. The troll stopped next to a door way, and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, and slouched slowly into the room.

"The key's in the lock." Harry muttered. "We could lock it in."

"Good idea." Ron said nervously. They edged toward the door.

"No, wait!" Lloyd hisses, but Harry had already grabbed the key, slam the door shut, and locked it.

"Yes!"

"That's the girls' bathroom!" Lloyd hissed at them, digging in his pocket. He came up with a ring, and slipped it on, before a scream rang from the room.

"Hermione!" Harry and Ron realize their mistake, before Lloyd shoved them aside, two swords of faintly blue tinted steel in his hands, each shaped faintly like a tear drop with fancy hilts. He didn't bother with the lock, or the handle, slamming his shoulder into the door with a roar. It buckled inward under the teen's blow, shimmering blue-white moving from his shoulder into the room, before Lloyd spotted the Troll.

"Oi. Fatty!" Lloyd shouts, darting for the beast with his blades drawn back behind him, robe flailing about his legs. He'd slashed off his robes at the knee before he'd slammed into the door. Hermione was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was going to faint. The Troll had been advancing on her, but it turned toward Lloyd with his shout, his blades whistling through the air to thunk into the granite like flesh of the Troll in rapid thrusts. Blood was staining the air about him at this point, but the Troll hardly reacted. When Lloyd jumped back to avoid the sweep of the troll's club, he was stained with the troll's dark blood, but it looked like little more than pinpricks on its hide.

"Get her out of here!" Lloyd bellows, lunging in with one blade in a thrust, the other to one side. Harry and Ron had been staring at Lloyd, but they shook themselves and moved for Hermione. Lloyd's left blade came up in a sweep then opened a shallow cut in the troll, which made the beast bellow, and continued up, Lloyd having kicked off with it. It caught sight of movement, Ron and Harry moving toward Hermione, and it forgot the stinging of Lloyd's attacks to swing its club through the wall above them. Lloyd shouted at it, calling it names, swearing at it, as he twisted in mid air, his foot swinging for the troll's head, connecting, before he brought the second blade down and fell to the floor.

"C'mon, run, run!" Harry shouted at Hermione, as Ron turned back to watch Lloyd.

"Bloody 'ell!" he says, eyes wide. Lloyd gave them a piercing look.

"Get moving!" the troll-blood splattered brunette yells, the blood a dark green color across his face, robes and blades. The troll seemed to be going into a frenzy of sorts, and swung its club for Lloyd. Lloyd managed to bring his blades up in an X in between him and the club, the wood getting bit deeply into by Lloyd's defense and the troll's force. Lloyd was being moved sideways, his boots trying to keep him put but failing with the troll's strength. It grunted, and swung with its fist. Lloyd grunted as he was thumped hard in the back, before he twisted, tearing a blade free of the club, and swung at the fist as it returned to hit him harder. The tip of the blade caught the underside of the troll's wrist, and cut deep. It bellowed, pulling both its arm and its club back away from Lloyd, but the brunette's other blade was stuck. When the club nearly missed hitting the other three on the head, Lloyd's second blade cut into the wall, causing the boy to hold onto both hilts for dear life as the troll continued moving the club.

"Why are you still here?!" Lloyd demands, glancing down at them with hard red-flecked brown eyes. "Get out!" Lloyd twisted, putting his feet on the troll's club to try to get his blade free. It came free as the Troll tried swinging it again, and sent Lloyd flying for the wall. He thudded into it, two twin thuds, and when Ron and Harry looked, he propelled himself forward, his feet leaving the wall before Lloyd twisted into a summersault, his blades extended. The troll bellowed again as Lloyd cut into its shoulder, his summersault halting as he cut deeper than the blades could manage, leaving the preteen on its shoulder and gouges in the ceiling. Lloyd made an annoyed noise, and moved closer to the troll's head, out of its reach, and tried to free his blades.

"What are you waiting for?!" Lloyd shouts at them, not even looking beyond a glance in their direction to see that they still hadn't moved as he worked a blade free with a spray of the dark green blood. "Get going!" Lloyd twisted, but his robes were caught by the Troll, and he snarled, lashing out with his blade, the other hand scrambling for the one still in the beast's shoulder. The troll helped him pull that one free, although it bellowed again at the pain, and Lloyd slashed twice. One blade cut through the base of the hand that held him, the other sliced through the skin just under the troll's jaw. Lloyd was dropped on his back, and he rolled away as the troll swayed, blood flowing freely down its front, and fell to the ground with a thud that made the whole room tremble. Lloyd got to his feet, looking about as if he expected another troll to come out of nowhere.

"Is... it... dead?" Hermione asks, staring at the downed troll and the spreading pool of blood.

"Should be." Lloyd says, his voice cold and sharp like his fathers. "Unless this isn't blood I'm covered with. I slashed both of its wrists and its neck, if its anatomy is anything like a humans, I got three of the main arteries." Ron and Harry looked at each other, a little frightened at the fact like way Lloyd said this while splattered with its blood. Not that all three of the ones who hadn't been attacking it weren't clean of the dark green liquid. A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the four look for the door, Lloyd shifting into a stance to face the remains of it, blood still running from his blades. They hadn't realized that a racket they had been making, but of course, someone downstairs must heard the crashes and the troll's roars. Lloyd stayed in that stance, hard brown eyes fixed on the door until Professor McGonagall had burst into the room over the wreckage of the door, closely followed by Snape with Quirrell bringing up the rear. Quirrell barely got to see Lloyd straighten out of his attack stance, Lloyd fixing how he was standing quickly once he noticed that the newcomers were humans, and teachers at that, but the bloodied blades were a dead giveaway. Quirrell took one look at the troll, lying face down in a pool of its own blood, gave a faint whimper, and quickly sat down on a more or less intact toilet, clutching his heart. Snape moved to look at the troll, bending over it, ignoring the blood he was standing in. Harry had never seen Professor McGonagall look quite as mad as she did when she looked at the three boys, although Lloyd got a double take.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" Professor McGonagall said, cold fury in her voice, but she kept looking at Lloyd. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

"It's dead." Snape pronounced, his dark eyes quickly flicking to Harry, then back to Lloyd. He saw the blades in Lloyd's hands, and scowled. "Where did you get those?" Lloyd looked at his bloodied blades.

".. Shit, forgot to clean them." Lloyd says, looking startled and sounding more like himself. He flicked the blades, quick movements of his wrists that sent the blood flying off them to splatter against the walls, and a bit on himself. ".. Still can't get it right..." he mutters, before he grabbed the least stained part of his already destroyed robes, and wiped them clean. "I conjured them." Lloyd said casually, spinning the blades about in his hands, and then making a motion like he was putting them away, the left hand blade at his right side, the right at his left, and the blades vanished. A practiced motion. "See?" he held out his stained, gloved hands, which were empty, although the left hand had a ring on the thumb.

"Well?" McGonagall says, looking sharply between the three boys. Lloyd scratched his chin, smearing the blood already there with some from his gloves, before he realized what he was doing and moved toward one of the destroyed sinks to wash up.

"Please, Professor McGonagall – they were looking for me." Hermione says, from the shadows.

"Miss Granger!" Hermione managed to get to her feet at last, and she was pale beneath stone grime, and a little troll blood. She kept dragging her eyes away from Lloyd as he used the spray of water to clean himself.

"I went looking for the troll because I – I thought I could deal with it on my own – you know, because I've read all about them." Ron gaped at Hermione, the teacher's pet, telling downright lie to a teacher. "if they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. Lloyd," there was a tiny bit of a tremor when she said the brunette's name, "smashed the door in, and fought it off while Harry and Ron tried to get me out of here. They didn't have time to fetch anyone; Lloyd could barely keep it away from us. It kept noticing again when we moved. It was about to finish me off when they came in... and Lloyd managed to defeat it." She didn't say kill, the spreading pool was enough to say that. Lloyd himself was still trying to clean up. Harry and Ron tried to look like this story wasn't new to them, while Snape studied Lloyd from behind, and McGonagall looked speculatively at the brunette as well.

"Well – in that case..." Professor McGonagall looked like she didn't believe Lloyd, as fast, or agile as he was, could have killed the troll, but the glance she sent to the staining puddle of water that Lloyd had used to clean himself seemed to tell them that she'd believe it. "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?" Hermione hung her head. Ron and Harry were speechless. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets. "Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this." She says. "I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better wash up and get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses." Hermione left, and McGonagall turned to Harry and Ron, and Soggy Lloyd moves back to join them, although still a bit watered down troll blood was still on him. Harry notes that the ring was gone.

"Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken down a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Mister Aurion, you will be accompanying me to Dumbledore's office, and you lose five points for doing something so foolish." Lloyd grimaced as she flicked her wand at him and he dried off, and then set to scrubbing some of the dried, watered down blood off his face. "You two may go." Harry and Ron returned to the Gryffindor tower, Lloyd and McGonagall heading off in a different direction, the brunette jumping away when she placed a hand on his shoulder, and Harry guessed that they wouldn't be seeing his brother until the morning.

* * *

i'm working out exactly what wil lcome next... like whether i want to show what Dumbly, McGonagall and Lloyd talk about, or just have people ask and him skim.

Harry Potter just got a bit more bloody, don'tcha think?


	12. B1: Game

The only lasting effects of the troll on Halloween was that Hermione was now their friend, and that Quirrell, Snape, and McGonagall watched Lloyd. November came, and with it, the winter cold. And Quidditch season. The first game was between Gryffindor and Slytherin, which meant Harry would play. Somehow word of his position had been leaked, and Harry wasn't sure which was worse – people telling him that he'd be fantastic, people telling him they'd be running under him with a mattress, Lloyd's cheery acceptance that he'd be fine, or Aurian's request, through Yuan, for pictures. The morning of, Harry had no appetite, although all of his friends were cheerfully insistent that he eat.

Lloyd was visible in the stands, having shed his robe for visibly wearing his red jacket, white scarf, and red gloves with the dark thick pants he wore daily. Some of the other students and most of the teachers gave him strange looks, as much for the clothes as for the bundle he carried. In the stands, it showed to be a large banner made by their Gryffindor group, which read Potter for President, with a large Gryffindor lion beneath, and the paint flashed in different colors. Shortly after the first score for Gryffindor, Hagrid joined them on the stands. Lloyd was among the loudest screaming at Flint for basically blocking Harry with his body and broom. When his broom was misbehaving, Lloyd was nearly frantic.

"Shit! I never got to fly! And we're not supposed to.." Lloyd's eyes kept traveling back to Harry in the air, and then dropped straight to the ground, and he grimaces. "if I tried to catch him from a drop at that height, we're both likely to get hurt, badly..." Hermione snagged Hagrid's binoculars, and was searching the stands.

"What are you doing?" Ron moans, as grey as Lloyd was pale.

"I knew it." Hermione breathed. "Snape – look." Lloyd snagged the binoculars before Ron could, and found Snape staring intently at Harry, muttering under his breath. Lloyd passes the binoculars' back to Hermione. "He's doing something. Jinxing the broom."

"Anyone else staring? That jinx-casting seems rather obvious, so if there's any chance of mistake..." Lloyd spoke rapidly, eyes flicking between the ground, teachers, and Harry.

"...Quirrell is.. but he's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, he shouldn't be casting a jinx."

"I'm going to break his jaw." Lloyd growls, getting up.

"What?" Ron had the binoculars now, and was looking at Harry, before looking startled at Lloyd. "Which one?"

"Both. Just to be safe." Lloyd says, heading for the stands over. Hagrid bear-hugs him, preventing him from moving anymore.

"Don't, Lloyd. You'll get yerself expelled." Hagrid says, moving back to their seats.

"They're trying to get him killed! Whichever one is casting the jinx is trying to kill my brother! I won't let them do that!" Lloyd snarls back, struggling.

"I'll do it. I'll distract them both." Hermione says this, and then hurries for where the two teachers sat in a crowd of them. Lloyd calmed, a little, his eyes still flicking quickly from the teachers to Harry in the air.

"Let me go. I'm going to go down to ground level. If he drops, I'll go after catching him." Lloyd mutters. "I promise I won't go hitting any teachers."

"... fine." Hagrid says, setting Lloyd back down. Lloyd made his way out of the stands, while Hermione headed over to the stands across from them. Lloyd only knew that the broom stopped behaving horribly while he waited still in the stand's stairs, Harry remounting in air. He then suddenly shot for the ground, clamping his hand to his mouth as if he was going to be sick, before he hit the field on all fours and coughed something golden into his hand.

"I got the snitch!" Harry waved it above his head as he shouted this. Once Madam Hooch had descended, and the game been declared over, Lloyd raced out onto the field to crush the air out of Harry in a hug, then drag him off toward Hagrid's hut. Ron, Hermione and Hagrid joined them outside, where Harry was trying to reassure Lloyd that he was completely fine, just a bit shaken.

".. does Lloyd look like a mother to you?" Hermione asks, looking a little startled. Ron blinks once, twice, then grins.

"Yep. Worrying like my mum does." Ron says. "But Harry's about two weeks older." Harry heard this, and was glad that Ron was going along with Lloyd's little magic.

"Really?" Hermione was a bit surprised. "I thought Lloyd was."

"Naw. He just has more.. varied interests. It gives him an air of more experience." Harry says quickly.

"We're talking about me?" Lloyd asks, blinking over at the two students and large man, dropping his hand from ruffling Harry's hair in relief. "I read a bit more than you'd think."

"Except for your school books." Hermione points out, and Lloyd grins.

"I read them all... Once." Hagrid ushered them all inside, and fixed them tea.

"It was Snape." Ron said firmly. "We three saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take your eyes off you." Lloyd choked on his tea, and was nearly thumped into the table by Hagrid in an attempt to help the problem.

"Rubbish." Hagrid says. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?" the four teens look at each other, before Lloyd straightens with a grimace.

"Because he's simply a jerk?" Lloyd offers, before Harry spoke up.

"I found out something about him. He tried to get past the three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

"He." Lloyd mutters. "That dog is definitely a he." He covers his face when the other three gape at him.

"You went back?!"

"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid asks.

"_Fluffy_?!"

"Yeah – he's mine – bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year – leant him to Dumbledore to guard the – "

"Yes?" Ron asks eagerly. Lloyd face palms, and kicks the boy under the table. Hagrid shuts up.

"Don't ask me anymore." Hagrid says gruffly as Ron rubbed his leg under the table. "That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it."

"Rubbish. Snape is a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothing of the sort."

"So why'd he try to kill my brother?" Lloyd demands, frowning. "People usually don't resort to murder of unsuspecting teens that they've only known for 2, 3 months unless they're megalomaniacs, or just plain evil."

"I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid." Hermione butts in. "I've read all about them. You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him."

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong! I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn't try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all of yeh, yer meddling in things that don't concern yeh. It's dangerous." Lloyd's expression became dangerously smug when Hagrid said that, but he says nothing. "You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore, an' Nicolas Flamel –"

"Aha!" Harry shouts, leaning forward. "There's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?" Hagrid looked furious with himself, while Lloyd face-palmed.

"Look, guys.." Lloyd says after they were out of the cottage. "the key to learning more than someone wants you to, is to not let them notice they've gone too far. That way, they go even further. Then, you neatly change the topic, and hopefully they don't ever realize until it's too late." When the three stared at him, he grinned. "I learned that from Uncle Yuan."

* * *

Rawr.


	13. B1: Gift

And I live!

i had trouble with this one.

but oh well.

Comes with the first bit of Lloyd-PoV!

well, not really PoV, but...

* * *

"What are you two doing for Christmas?" Hermione asks Lloyd and Harry. "I'm going back home."

"We.. don't really celebrate Christmas." Lloyd says, while Harry looks confused at Lloyd's words.

"What? No Christmas?" Ron gapes at them.

"Oh, wait, that wasn't the right word.." Lloyd says hastily. "We swap gifts, but it's not... religious or anything. More like a communal birthday thing than anything religious. We've had some ... bad experiences with religions. The whole birthday feel is added to 'cause Dad's birthday is three days before." He shuts up as the post came in through the windows, heavy wing beats filling the air over chatter.

"So, you won't be staying?" Ron asks. Harry shrugs.

"Don't think so." Aeros landed before Lloyd, stealing some of his breakfast while Lloyd quickly shoved what he wanted into his mouth and took the letter.

"Actually... we are." Lloyd was slowly reading a letter written in the runic alphabet that was apparently the only thing Aurian could write in. "Apparently, one of them blew a chunk out of the house... so it's getting fixed. As much as holidays are a chance to see us, they want to get the house... 'back steady again', I think that says." He trailed a finger over the line while the others stared at him blankly. "Yeah. Back steady again. Wow. Must'a been a big chunk."

"... They blew a chunk out of your house?" Ron asks, frowning. "How'd they manage that?"

"They're battle mages." Lloyd says with a grin, tilting his head. "It's what they do best."

* * *

Lloyd woke Harry his customary way for any holiday- by jumping on the teen to scream "Merry Christmas", or whatever the holiday was, into his face. Once Harry had yelled, and provided sufficient thrashing, the brunette gave Ron the same treatment. Harry was pleased to find that his friend screamed more than he did about Lloyd jumping on him. Lloyd was laughing uncontrollably with it all.

"Presents!" he shouted out before dissolving into laughter on the ground next to Ron's bed again. There were several on each of their beds. Harry noticed that for once, the curtains were completely thrown back on Lloyd's bed. The headboard was covered with tiny, well, finger sized, wooden carvings. He saw animals, strange creatures he hadn't even seen in books, people from classes, Yuan, Aurian, Kratos, and another dozen or so people he never saw before.

But it was time for presents. The one on top, for Harry, was from Hagrid, and held a wooden flute. Harry blew on it, and it sounded a bit like an owl. Lloyd was scowling at a book he got, but brightened when he flipped it open. From Mrs. Weasley, both Aurion (Harry pretended that was his last name, they didn't change it in the adoption because the Potter line would vanish but Harry felt they were more.. family, if he had the same name) boys had a sweater – emerald for Harry and crimson for Lloyd. Ron had maroon and all three homemade fudge. Lloyd had started in on his quickly.

"You gotta tell your mom to tell Dad how to make this." Lloyd says around a cube, pretty much the same thing he'd said every time they'd gotten fudge from Mrs. Weasley. "He'd _hug_ her." Harry also got chocolate from Hermione – chocolate frogs. From Lloyd, he got wooden carvings of Hedwig and Aeros, each owl having one in flight, and one sitting. While Ron stared at the tiny details on feathers, Lloyd leaned over to snag one. "If you've got a corner, and place the beak of the ones in flight on it, they'll balance that way." Harry tried it. "Once I learn the charms, I'll figure out how to make them act like the owls. That'd be _sweet_." Ron got small carvings of Quidditch players from his favorite team The Chudley Cannons– not as detailed as the owls, but still fairly good. Lloyd explained he had gotten pictures to work off of, and those moving had actually helped him a bit. From Yuan, he got a thick book that seemed to be on alternative magics involving runes, seals and nature elements. Lloyd got a small box, which he grinned at and pocketed. From Kratos, Harry got a muggle-fantasy novel, one of the thick ones that the man devoured at an insanely fast rate. From Aurian...

"A metal quill?" Harry stared at his gift, which indeed was a metal quill, almost like it was from a real bird, but out of burnished silver. It was stabbed into a piece of paper, and upon it where two different scripts. " _'This is from Aurian, if you didn't know that already. She's got horrid handwriting, so I wrote this bit for her. She says that yes, it is a metal quill, but you never have to dip it. No sneaky compartments to refill either, and no nib-sharpening, because you can kill someone with it already. Actually, she didn't say that part, I made it up. It's still sharp enough to scratch you, but I think most quills are supposed to be that sharp. In any case, it's a pen. For all that homework we know you're getting... and completing __on time__.' _I think Yuan wrote that."

"Definitely sounds like Yuan." Lloyd agrees, flipping through the book.

"... He's right, I can barely read this..." Harry frowns at the other handwriting.

"Let me see..." Ron moves over and looks at the paper. "Bloody hell, that is nasty. What's it say?"

"Merry Christmas. Misspelled." Lloyd mutters, peeking at it. "and then ... Aurian."

Ron went back to his own pile of presents, and pulled out a drawing. Lloyd blinked at it.

"What's this...?" Ron stared at it. "It doesn't move..."

"That's..." Lloyd stared at it. "... that ass."

"Huh?" Ron blinks at Lloyd.

"Yuan drew that." Lloyd says, grumpily. Harry leaned over to look. It was a glade, a stream running in from the top right corner, down a small ledge in a cascade, around an island with a tree on it, and then off to near the bottom right corner. Behind it, on that ledge, were slabs of white, remains of a building of white, seamless stone that had fallen, but strangely, the material looked new, but already covered with plant growth. "The Tower of Salvation." Lloyd indicated the rubble almost grudgingly. "It used to reach into the heavens, before it got destroyed. Mark of a Flourishing World..." Lloyd looked a little bitter. "And that's the World Tree." Lloyd indicated the sapling.

"World Tree." Ron mutters. "With a grand name like that, you'd think it'd be bigger."

"It's only a baby..." Lloyd protests, then his eyes caught on something. "Oh, he didn't..." he gently ran his fingers over one edge, then brightened. "Haha! He did! And this..." Lloyd did something to the corner with a tiny flicker of light – a pastel turquoise, and suddenly the tree grew. And grew, and grew until the trunk barely fit the frame. Ron almost dropped it. "This is what it will look like, when it grows up..."

"Wow..." Ron mutters. "And here I thought it wouldn't move... How'd you do that?"

"Like this." Lloyd shows him the little off-colored spot on the side. "Remember how you have to focus for spells? On your finger, run it across." Lloyd did so again, and there was the ruined building and the stream and the sapling.

"Like... this?" Ron tries, scrunching his face up with the effort, and Lloyd shakes his head.

"Almost. You can try with your wand if that'll help you."

"What's this?" Harry picks up one parcel – a light squishy one that didn't have a name on it, nor was there anyone left he knew to give a gift to him.

"No idea." Lloyd says, blinking, and counting already unwrapped presents. "And no one's left..." So Harry unwrapped it hesitantly. Something fluid and silvery fell out, and Lloyd immediately jumped over and poked it with one of the pencils he'd carried in. It moved like cloth.

"I've heard of those." Ron is in hushed awe as he perches on the edge of his bed. "If that's what I think it is... They're really rare and _really _valuable."

"Looks like solid moonshine." Lloyd mutters. "Maybe like one or two varieties of Magic Cloth..."

"So what is it?" Harry asks.

"It's an invisibility cloak." Ron says in awe. "I'm sure it is – try it on." Harry did so, wrapping the cloth about his shoulders. Lloyd gave an interesting twitch, and stared at him in a sort of vacant way. "It _is_! Look down!" He couldn't see himself, and wrapped it over his head, grinning. Ron immediately lost him, but Lloyd stared vacantly ahead, head tilted so that his right ear was up, and _tracked_ him roughly.

"A note!" Lloyd jumped on it, and Harry threw his cloak off, moving to look.

"_'Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well. A Very Merry Christmas'_." Harry reads.

"No signature." Lloyd comments. "And it has to be your dad – Yuan'd have lifted this if it was in my dad's hands." He blinked. "And he's not dead. Big give away there. No offence."

* * *

_No way. There was no freaking way..._ Lloyd stares at the Mirror. Mirror of Erised, according to the top of it. _There was no way they were all here._

"What do you see, Lloyd?" Harry asks, off to one side.

"I am so hallucinating. That, or the Mirror's broken." Lloyd breathes, staring. Trying to memorize it all in case it vanished.

"Why?" Ron asked.

"There's not seventy two more people in here...And I can't see you two." Lloyd stares in awe at the Mirror. It wasn't going to vanish. He reached out a hand, trailing it over a dark cat-like creature with purple to its fur, who was laughing with twin blond teens, one with green eyes in a strange dress-like dark shirt-coat with dark pants and matching scarf, one with grey eyes in a white coat and high boots. The grey eyed one stood next to a taller, red haired man with green eyes, who wasn't actively laughing, but was with his stance, a blue-creature reminiscent of both a cat and a fish floating behind him. The green eyed one stood with a maple haired girl, one arm around her waist as she laughed with them, small orbs of violet, brown, pale blue, green, red, and gold dancing about them. He didn't dare touch the mirror, but ghosted his fingers over the images of his friends.

"Tenebrae? Hah, he was stuffier than Dad... the other Centurions.." He could almost see ghostly forms with those glowing orbs as centers. "..Aster too? Wow, still looks a lot like Emil... No wonder Richter was having issues..." Not anymore, now that they'd come to terms with Ratatosk and the Ginnungagap. In the center was him, but in his old Dwarven clothes. Smiling Colette, smirking Genis, Nose-in-book Raine, Sheena and Zelos arguing, Presea calmly watching, but her eyes were happy. Regal in the background, fatherly looking. Proud of them all – well, maybe not Zelos. "And there's all the Team... and the Kharlan five.." It was Aurian, but not really Aurian. She was smiling, a sweet smile under dark purple hair, and her eyes golden and not haunted, not cold. "Sym`El, I think Yuan called her once..." Kratos, smiling, laughing at something Yuan said, the blue haired man had his arms around a green haired woman who looked very much like Colette but for the color differences. Mithos, still a child, clinging to Martel's other arm. A brunette under Kratos's, on the other side of him from Aurian. Laughing. "...Mom..." Behind Yuan, looking more relaxed than he'd ever seen the man, Botta. Another corner, next to Noishe in his Arshis form, not the current Fenrilra, was a half elf, Elf, dwarf, and human, laughing, getting along, hugging. "... why are there... oh, right..." his eyes widened as he spotted someone else. The aqua hair, eye patch, metal arm. He was laughing too, looking companionable among the people who had killed him. Well, companionable with Genis, Raine and himself, at the very least. Just like Zelos and Kratos occasionally shot glares at each other when they thought the other wasn't looking. "Forcystus too!.. I knew we'd be able to get along..." He abruptly shuts himself up, before he said anything he shouldn't. Drinking in the sight of everyone, together. Alive. Marble was even there, wearing clothes like Cacao and Chocolat had, with her daughter and granddaughter, a man in clothes similar near as well. Aska and Luna, Shadow. Altessa and Tabatha, whole and working and smiling. Origin and Maxwell. Dorr, with Clara and Kilia. Efreet and Celsius. Harry, with his parents. Ratatosk, and Mana. Dirk. Tethe'Allan Nobles and Sylvaranti Fishermen, chatting and getting along. Volt and Undine. The Weasleys, with no more hand-me-downs but for fondness. "Now I found you... but you're not where you two should be." The Sylph –Yutis and Fairess floating near each other, Sephie flying elsewhere, Gnome. The Unicorn. All before a massive pair of trees that spread far and wide beyond the limits of the mirror.

"I don't think you're hallucinating." Harry says, uncomfortable with the look on Lloyd's face as he studies the mirror that to the other two boys only showed the brunette.

* * *

Harry found his way back the third night quicker than the first and the second night with Ron and Lloyd. He made his way quickly, but stopped in surprise when he spotted someone already there. Lloyd sat before the mirror, holding a pad of paper and pencils in his hair and one between his teeth as he lightly traced someone with a finger.

"Lloyd...?" Harry blinks, heading closer to the brunette boy. Lloyd blinked at him, looking up with a grin about his pencil.

"Hello." Lloyd looked away from him and back at the mirror, taking the pencil from his mouth and sketching further. "No, stop moving and watching, stay like that..." Lloyd mutters to the mirror, watching the people he saw within it then sketching quickly.

"What're you..." Harry asks quietly, looking over Lloyd's shoulder to see Lloyd's reflection in the mirror as he sketched, and then the group of people sketched within the paper.

"My friends." Lloyd says slowly, glancing up and down and muttering. "Stop moving, Forcystus, you're making things difficult.. Yes, stay by the Sages." Lloyd gave the mirror a slight glare, but grinned and continued sketching. "I figured you'd like to see them. So, I brought – Tenebrae! Don't do that!" Lloyd scowled at one corner of the picture. "Fine, I just won't draw you. How about that?" There was a pause, before Lloyd looked smug. "I thought so." He quickly sketched out something.

"So you brought things to draw with." Harry finishes the sentence that Lloyd had interrupted.

"Huh?" Lloyd glanced up at him, then smeared a line with his thumb – not the first time he'd done so, by the color of his finger, then back at the mirror. "Yeah." He sketched a bit further – Harry saw him adding a cat next to a pair of humans that looked like twins but for their clothes. There were many, many people in Lloyd's sketch, all pencil and clean paper yet, but in strange outlines of clothing besides. "I'm almost done..." Lloyd mumbles, sketching yet.

"Take your time." Harry takes a seat at a desk, although he was twitching a little to look in again. Last time, one of his grandfathers, at least with the hair and placement he was fairly sure the grandfather was his, had started some sort of prank war with Yuan.

"Back again, Harry and Lloyd?" Lloyd only glanced over at the Headmaster's voice, Harry jumping and twisting to look about. Dumbledore sat in a desk near the door.

"I-I didn't see you, sir." Harry says.

"Been there for a while." Lloyd mutters, already sketching again.

"Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you." Dumbledore says. He sits on the floor, and pats it like someone would a favorite chair. Harry joined Dumbledore and Lloyd on the floor. "So you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."

"Didn't know it was called that." Harry shrugs.

"On the top." Lloyd points at it, still hunched over his sketching.

"But I expect you've realized by now what it does?" Dumbledore asks.

"Well, it shows my family happy." Harry mutters.

"Family, extended family." Lloyd mumbles, blowing eraser bits off his sketch pad.

"You have an extended family?" Harry blinks, glancing at him.

"Friends are that, aren't they?" Lloyd grins, but the mirror traps his attention again.

"And it showed your friend Ron himself as Head Boy." Dumbledore points out.

"How did you-" Harry knew that the Pictures had Ears and Mouths, but still...

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible." Dumbledore says. "Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?" Harry shakes his head, and Lloyd's too busy drawing to pay attention.

"Let me explain. The happiest man in on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is." Dumbledore says. "Does that help?"

"Ah. Makes sense why I see them hugging..." Lloyd mutters. "Why everyone's alive..."

"It shows us what we want...? Whatever we want...?" Harry guesses.

"Yes and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them and your adoptive getting along. Ronald Weasley, who has always been over shadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. And Lloyd-"

"I see the end of Discrimination by class, blood, and race, my friends, the dead alive for them..." Lloyd says, still sketching. "I see my family how they were, other families not torn apart. I'm friends with a man who I never had the chance to be. The Tree's are flourishing..."

"Large desires for one so young." Dumbledore notes, even as Lloyd trails off with a wince and keeps drawing.

"Yeah, but I'm working on it. Obviously not the ones dealing with death. Can't undo that, as much as Mithos wished..." Lloyd trailed off, staring intently at the mirror. "Can see why Yuan liked her so much..." Lloyd whispers, reaching up as if to touch the mirror again. "She looks like the kind of girl that'd be able to put up with him, without losing her smile... Cause ya know Yuan's an _ass_." He looked back at his sketching and fixed something.

"Ah, Lloyd..." Harry nudged the brunette in the side carefully, looking apologetically at Dumbledore.

"However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth." Dumbledore says, ignoring Lloyd's language. "Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible." Dumbledore stood. "The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, Lloyd." Lloyd glanced up as Dumbledore said his name, then back to his sketching. "And I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever _do_ run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that." Lloyd made a pleased noise and carefully blew on his sketch. "Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?" Harry stood after the professor, Lloyd already packing up, the white of the paper vanishing into the off-black of his clothes.

"Sir-Professor Dumbledore? May I ask you something?" Harry asks.

"You may ask another." Dumbledore smiles a little.

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?" Harry winced after he asked that. That was Private.

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks." Dumbledore says. Harry stares blankly while Lloyd snorts. "One can never have enough socks." Dumbledore continues. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

"Take a minute to look." Lloyd says, shrugging at Dumbledore's comments, moving away from the mirror. "I took up your time."

* * *

"What are you going to do with that?" Harry asks quietly as Lloyd took his sketch out of where he'd hidden it.

"I'll ink it." Lloyd says just as quietly as he sets it on the shelf with his little figures. "Then I'll ask about charms so if I mess up with colors, I can fix it. Not animate though – they might do things... awkward if I tried that. Then copy it, maybe." He glanced at Harry. "If you want a copy."

"If you'd like to share that important to you." Harry blinked as Lloyd pulled him into an one-armed hug.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have offered it."


End file.
